And, no, this isn't a fake news but a real one where scientists have gotten one step closer, very close I might add, to help solve an age old problem on how to restore hearing loss in deaf and hard of hearing people.
Deaf people could one day have their hearing restored through a ground-breaking gene therapy technique, scientists reported yesterday.Read more here. And even more details here.
They showed that they can trigger the growth of new hair cells in the inner ear that are crucial to hearing as they pick up sound vibrations.
In tests on mice they showed that stimulating these usually irreplaceable cells to grow resulted in new cells that helped detect noise.
Researchers believe the approach could eventually be used to improve or restore hearing to the 9 million people in Britain classified as deaf or hard of hearing.
Dr. Mark Downs, of the Royal National Institute for Deaf People, said: "This is an exciting development which completes another important piece of the jigsaw in understanding how we might use gene therapy to eventually restore hearing loss.
"It is no longer a pipedream to talk about cell and drug-based solutions. There is a long way to go, but the journey towards new treatments is certainly under way."
Once scientists began to unravel certain key but crucial elements on how to unlock the mysteries of deafness by restoring hearing will only mean that the dominos will fall faster as more scientists join in on the search to finally help restore hearing loss. This news discovery today will only mean that research will step up even more quicker and the time til the first deaf person to have his/her hearing restored will be even more closer and not some distant pipe dream.
Amazing science!
And here's to for the restoration of hearing loss!
