2023-11-01 12:40:53
China
Medical sensation – Yiyi can hear once more
Yiyi can hear once more thanks to years of research by Chinese scientists. Gene therapy promises that up to 65 percent of hearing can be restored.
Published1. November 2023, 1:40 p.m
Yiyi, from the Chinese city of Dongguan, can hear without her implant following undergoing gene therapy.
Technology Review
In China, some children who were born deaf can hear once more following gene therapy.
A virus is used to add replacement DNA to the cells in the inner ear.
The girl Yiyi can now hear without her implant.
A girl nicknamed Yiyi from the Chinese city of Dongguan has been deaf since birth. That’s why her family registered her for a new type of gene therapy at the beginning of the year. Doctors used a virus to add replacement DNA to the cells in her inner ear, which can pick up vibrations and transmit sounds to her brain.
The mother tells “Technology Review” that her daughter was able to hear with the treated ear within a month. For example, the girl can now hear the school bell ringing to signal the end of her nap. She used to have to be woken up by classmates. Yiyi is one from several deaf childrenwho scientists in China say are the first people ever to have their natural hearing restored.
“Cautious and a little nervous”
Lead surgeon Yilai Shu says they were cautious and a little nervous during the treatment as there had never been a similar procedure before. Shu previously spent years developing the relevant techniques and testing gene injections on countless mice and guinea pigs. Of the first five children treated, four of them regained hearing. The fifth assumes that there is immunity to the type of virus injected.
Shu assumes that the treatment can currently achieve around 60 to 65 percent of normal hearing. He says children should ideally be treated around the age of one, a key moment for language development. Yiyi is older and, like several of the previous children in the study, had previously received a cochlear implant, an electronic device that uses a receiver and electrodes to stimulate hearing.
Yiyi complains regarding noise
The fact that Yiyi can now hear also brings with it a small disadvantage: the family lives on the 15th floor of an apartment building. There is heavy traffic nearby, the noise of which reaches the windows. Before gene therapy, Yiyi might simply take out her implant at night and then hear nothing. Now, says her mother, “she complains that it’s too loud.”
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