FACTS: Tinnitus and hearings aids. Annoying, inconvenient, not hip. Hearing loss reversal? Very hip, very cool, and might be available sooner than you think. An MIT bio-tech company, Frequency Therapeutics, has been giving patients progenitor cells to regrow tiny hairs in the ear canal that help prevent hear-shaming and difficult short-lived conversations with relatives. The process is called regenerative therapy and it involves the injection of the progenitor cells into the inner ear where it will create the tiny hairs that are lost from age, loud noises, and drug use. Three of four trials of 200 people have shown positive results in the new hearing loss treatment and now they are moving onto a 124-person study. If the new study goes well then we’ll be seeing regenerative therapy testing wide spread as soon as 2022. Results are promising so far but we shouldn’t be expecting the new hearing loss treatment to hit markets for a few more years.
QUOTES: Jeff Karp, Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology affiliate faculty member,“I wouldn’t be surprised if in 10 or 15 years, because of the resources being put into this space and the incredible science being done, we can get to the point where reversing hearing loss would be similar to Lasik surgery, where you’re in and out in an hour or two and you can completely restore your vision.”
SOURCE: See More at MIT News click here.
