Stem Cells Turn Hearing Back On

puddingebola sends this excerpt from an article at ScienceNow: "Scientists have enabled deaf gerbils to hear again — with the help of transplanted cells that develop into nerves that can transmit auditory information from the ears to the brain. The advance, reported today in Nature, could be the basis for a therapy to treat various kinds of hearing loss. ... Rivolta and his colleagues knew that during embryonic development, a handful of proteins, including fibroblast growth factor (FGF) 3 and 10, are required for ears to form. So they exposed human embryonic stem cells to FGF3 and FGF10. Multiple types of cells formed, including precursor inner-ear hair cells, but they were also able to identify and isolate the cells beginning to differentiate into the desired spiral ganglion neurons. Then, they implanted the neuron precursor cells into the ears of gerbils with damaged ear neurons and followed the animals for 10 weeks. The function of the neurons was restored.'"

Comments

Congress will turn a deaf-ear

[Anonymous Coward]

Congress will turn a deaf-ear to the pleas of those waiting for stem-cell research.

Deaf gerbils, yes, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Has it been tested on leppards?

Deaf community will hate this

[Wyatt Earp]

Many in the deaf community are against technologies that restore hearing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaf_culture#Values_and_beliefs

A positive attitude toward being deaf is typical in Deaf cultural groups. Deafness is not generally considered a condition that needs to be fixed.

Re:Deaf community will hate this

[jbrandv]

I lost hearing in my right ear several years ago from sudden hearing loss. I'd give almost anything to get it back. I have tinnitus in that ear so bad it almost hurts sometimes. Plus you have no idea how frustrating it is to hear a sound and NOT be able to tell where it came from. PLEASE fix it!

Re:Deaf community will hate this

[Tog Klim]

I have partial hearing loss due to nerve damage in one ear when I was 30. I now wear a hearing aid in that ear. I would love to have my hearing fixed without an aid.

Re:Deaf community will hate this

[Antipater]

Deafness/blindness that occurred later in life (injury, disease, etc.), sure. But for people who were born that way, or who lost their hearing too early to remember, probably not so much. Opening a facet of the world to someone who has spent their entire life with no concept of it can be exceedingly shocking, even traumatic. A little on this is discussed in the wiki article on recovery from blindness, but a much more interesting account is written by Oliver Sacks about Virgil, a man whose vision was partially restored at age 50 after a lifetime of blindness (short on time, so I can't a link, but Google should have it somewhere). In a nutshell, Virgil's experience with sight was like trying to get your grandfather to play a video game. He understands what it is, but sees it as a novelty, something that's extraneous and totally unneeded. Worse, he's bad at it, and knowing that he's bad at it makes him frustrated when you try to get him to play.

Virgil was not a happy man after his surgery. He lapsed into depression and pretty much lost the will to live. So be careful when you start proclaiming that people simply don't know what they're missing - they might be better off that way at thsi point.

Re:Deaf community will hate this

[Kaz Kylheku]

Those people have a right to their ignorant opinion. But no collective has a right to dictate the destiny of an individual.

It is certainly better to hear than not to hear, without a question. Moreover, I would welcome the ability to, say, see infrared or ultraviolet, or to sense the direction of a magnetic field in which I am immersed. I only have a positive attitude toward not having these abilities, because (most?) other people also don't have them.

Re:Deaf community will hate this

[Kaz Kylheku]

Virgil is an anecdote. We have no access to a parallel universe in which a "control Virgil" lives who hasn't had his sight restored. Maybe that Virgil would have lost the will to live anyway. Virgil died of pneumonia only four months after the surgery. So all that we know about his experience is confined to a few weeks or months following the restoration of sight, not how he would have coped in the long run.

Re:Deaf community will hate this

[narcc]

"Deaf culture" is the reason that the deaf community suffers from severe unemployment and illiteracy. Deaf culture is the reason so few deaf people pursue higher education. It's what keeps competent teachers and administrators out of deaf schools (you know, the ones who aren't "deaf enough"). Worst of all, it breeds fear and hatred; keeping the deaf community isolated.

Deaf culture is destroying any hope the deaf community has for a brighter future.

Deaf culture is a disease far worse than the disability. It needs to be choked out. It needs to disappear. Deaf culture is the REAL threat.

Damn!

[iBod]

32 weeks of studying 'Sign Language for Gerbils' - all for nothing.

FUND THIS SHIT.

[neokushan]

Seriously, just fucking fund it already. Fuck the religious ones that want to live in the dark ages, this is SCIENCE and if it can make deaf kids hear and blind kids see, then fuck whatever piece of paper says it's immoral and fuck the assholes that try to stop it.

Re:Those amazing stem cells

[RandomFactor]

Wake me when the do this with non-Embryonic stem cells. I don't have an embryonic me lying around on ice to harvest.