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full screen An 11-year-old boy who was born deaf has now started hearing after being treated with gene therapy in October 2023. Photo: Children’s Hospital Of Philadelphia/AP/TT
Five out of six deaf children regained hearing with the help of gene therapy tested as part of a study. Now the researchers hope to be able to help more people.
It is Chinese researchers who, since 2022, have tested the treatment on six children who have a type of congenital deafness that is due to a mutation in a certain gene. The gene codes for a protein needed to transport sound signals from the ear to the brain.
With gene therapy, the hope is to be able to replace the mutated gene so that the protein can be formed. The results of the six trials now published in the scientific journal Lancet seem promising.
According to the study, the children’s hearing improved 26 weeks after the treatment. The children should also have improved their speech about six months after they started hearing. With the help of a harmless virus, the new gene was operated into the children, who then began to produce the protein.
In total, about 2 to 8 percent of all congenital deafness and hearing loss are due to this particular mutation.
“The results of the study are astonishing. We saw how the children’s hearing improved week by week,” says Zheng-Yi Chen from Harvard Medical School, who is one of the researchers behind the study in a press release.
Based on the results and the fact that no serious long-term side effects were discovered, the researchers are now planning for larger studies on more children.
Earlier this week, researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia presented the news that an 11-year-old boy who also underwent gene therapy has started to hear for the first time in his life, reports AFP, among others.