Surprisingly or not, about 20% of the entire population of the planet is struggling with hearing loss. There are plenty of factors that can lead to a person not being able to enjoy their favorite songs anymore. We can consider heredity, aging, some illnesses, some meds, and so on.
But we can all consider ourselves lucky to be living in times when science proposes a few solutions for tackling hearing loss. According to SciTechDaily.com, MIT researchers propose a new way of dealing with hearing loss, and it’s something totally different from implants or hearing aids.
Frequency Therapeutics aims to cure hearing loss
Frequency Therapeutics is a biotechnology company and it’s the one that’s proposing a new way that people could deal with hearing loss. Through a new type of regenerative therapy, hearing loss should get reversed. The method works by programming progenitor cells through small molecules. The goal is to create small hair cells that are responsible for making a person hear.
While the new method has worked during clinical trials, more tests are needed. The company is preparing to conduct another trial that shall involve 124 individuals, but there is plenty to wait for the results. The preliminary results will arrive in 2023.
Jeff Karp, who’s one of the founders of Frequency Therapeutics, stated as SciTechDaily.com quotes:
Hearing is such an important sense; it connects people to their community and cultivates a sense of identity,
I think the potential to restore hearing will have enormous impact on society.
Robert Langer, a professor at the MIT Institute, explained as the same source quotes:
Some of these people [in the trials] couldn’t hear for 30 years, and for the first time they said they could go into a crowded restaurant and hear what their children were saying,
It’s so meaningful to them. Obviously more needs to be done, but just the fact that you can help a small group of people is really impressive to me.
