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An innovative treatment developed by researchers at MIT in the United States promises to regenerate hair cells in the ear and restore hearing
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States announced the development of an innovative treatment to reverse hearing loss. The drug, which includes a regenerative therapy, is being developed by pharmaceutical company Frequency Therapeutics under the leadership of MIT scientists and is showing encouraging results even in the early stages of clinical trials. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately 2.5 billion people, a quarter of the world’s population, suffer from some degree of hearing loss.
When a person is still in the womb, there are progenitor cells — descendants of stem cells that can transform into other body cells — that remain in the inner ear and form what are called hair cells, which are responsible for hearing.
However, these precursor particles become dormant before birth and never metamorphose into other cells. In addition, the 15,000 hair cells present in each human ear at birth die over time and never regenerate. The scientists explain that factors such as loud noise accelerate this degradation and the resulting hearing loss.
However, in 2012, an MIT research team managed to convert progenitor cells into thousands of hair cells in the lab, which is considered innovative and had never been done before. The molecules responsible for performance were then tested as a drug injected into the ear to locally regenerate the hair cells that enable hearing.
According to a statement from the institute, the new treatment improved the hearing ability of people in clinical trials “significantly”, as measured by tests of speech perception the ability to understand speech and recognize words. Some results have lasted almost two years.
“Some of these people (in the tests) could not hear for 30 years and reported for the first time that they were able to walk into a crowded restaurant and hear what their children were saying. It is very meaningful to her. Obviously more testing needs to be done, but just the fact that you can help a small group of people is really impressive to me,” said MIT Professor and Founder of Frequency Therapeutics Robert Langer.
The company is currently recruiting 124 people for new clinical trials, and more preliminary results should be available early next year, the researchers say.