🏠 Fixing the hearing bug

Tech for good

Author

Brett Goldstein
May 13, 2024

GM! It’s Brett again. Hope y’all had a good Mother’s Day yesterday and have a good OpenAI announcement day today!

Happy holidays!

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🏠 BIOTECH

Gene Therapy

Something fascinating just happened in the UK - doctors used gene therapy to restore hearing for a deaf girl named Opal Sandy.

She was born with a genetic mutation that caused profound deafness. Instead of fitting her with traditional hearing aids or cochlear implants, her doctors tried an experimental gene therapy approach.

They used a modified, harmless virus to deliver a working copy of the faulty gene into the sound-sensing hair cells in Opal's inner ear.

Almost like editing the source code to fix the bug causing her deafness.

The results are mind-blowing. Just six months after the therapy, Opal can now hear soft whispers unaided in the treated ear. She's even starting to speak her first words like "mama" and "dada".

While cochlear implants are amazing, they don't actually restore natural hearing. This gene therapy gets closer by directly fixing the root biological cause.

The Big Picture: This breakthrough could potentially lead to cures for a wide range of inherited disabilities and diseases by correcting the root genetic causes.

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