Unexpected method to help treat hearing loss

Researchers have developed a method to regenerate ear hair cells to help reverse hearing loss.

Inside the ear, thousands of ear hair cells help detect sound waves and convert them into nerve signals that allow us to hear speech, music and other everyday sounds.

Over time, with the aging of the body, the cells will gradually die slowly. On average, each ear will lose approximately 15,000 hair cells.

In addition, the noise is too loud, aging and the use of some drugs is also the main reason for this more serious damage and is the leading factor contributing to hearing loss. In animals, these cells are still able to regenerate after they fall. In contrast, in humans, once the cells have been damaged, they do not grow back naturally.

Images of cells derived from cochlea, stimulated to differentiate into ear hair cells.

Recently, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in collaboration with the Women's Hospital and Brigham, together with the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Institute, introduced a new technology to help address these harms. Specifically, the technology simulates the ability to regenerate animal hair cells to increase the density of hair cells in the inner ear to limit hearing loss for this reason.

Based on a study published in 2013 on intestinal mucosal cells, scientists found a common point in the mechanism of using immature cells to stimulate it.

This technology uses cells derived from the cochlea of ​​mice. In it, the team used additional molecules along the Wnt signal path to reach cochlear cells to stimulate them to multiply. When a sample of 2000 cochlear cells is reached, a set of molecules will be created and stimulated to allow them to differentiate into new mature hair cells. This technology delivers 60 times the productivity of other technologies.

"We only need to promote the development of supporting cells, and then the signal flow according to the natural mechanism that exists in the body will activate the secondary process so that the supporting cells become Hair cells, " said Professor Jeffrey Karp, from Brigham Women's Hospital, explained.

The team believes that, with a simple application process, which does not require the impact of many drugs, this technology will be accessible to patients and allow them to recover their hearing safely and effectively. The technology is expected to be officially tested on humans in the next 18 months under strict monitoring conditions by Frequency Therapeutics, founded by MIT's support.