Will Certain Deafness Be Cured in Our Lifetime?

More progress is being made in the hope that hearing loss will be restored someday soon. Except this news isn't about stem cells but about using actual inner ear cells and coax them into regrowing mature hearing nerve fibers.

Australian researchers say they have developed an alternative to stem cell technology for growing human inner ear cells.

The Ear Science Institute Australia said it has successfully grown inner ear cells taken from an adult patient at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Western Australia.

Researcher Marcus Atlas said the cells have the potential to restore hearing and balance in those who are born deaf or have degenerative hearing diseases, though human trials are still a long way off.

Atlas said growing adult organ cells in a laboratory has presented problems for researchers in the past. "It is extremely difficult for us to grow these cells .... We have to give them the right environment, we need the right nutrients, the right blood supply, the right environment for these [inner ear] hair cells to grow in."

"I think one of our biggest challenges will be in fact getting these hair cells to actually attach to the existing nerve fibres and create a functional hearing system. That is a significant move for us and that is where we're going to now," he said.

The researchers are asking for millions in government funding to advance trials of the procedure.

This area of research will simply heat up over time as more and more researchers get into the game to come up with the first patented process of growing ear hair cells in the laboratory for each deaf/hh patient using their own ear hair cells. Successful application will spell out a very lucrative market in the medicine field. Just as curing Type 1 diabetes using stem cells will it soon become a lucrative field to be in.

I'm all for research on finding cures for various conditions and ailments, including hearing loss. At least people can have a choice to keep with their hearing loss or not.