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Can Stem Cells Cure Deafness?
The push is on to use the many recent stem cell
discoveries to cure deafness. And there is much research in progress
that points to effective hearing loss treatments using stem cells. We
may soon see clinical trials that seek to treat hearing loss using stem
cells!
See also our coverage of
hair cell regeneration, some of which which includes stem cell
applications.
September 2012 -
Deaf gerbils 'hear again' after stem cell cure
July 2012 -
Cord Blood Stem Cells Restore Toddler's Hearing
June 2012 -
Stem Cells for Relieving Age-Related Hearing Loss
April 2012 -
US begins stem cell trial for hearing loss
February 2012 - Clinical Trials Study Cord Blood
Stem Cells to Help Treat Hearing Loss
January 2012 - First FDA-Approved Study of Stem
Cells to Treat Hearing Loss Begins
January 2012 - AFA Denounces FDAs Approval of
Newborn Stem Cell Experimentation
October 2011 - Vitro Develops Novel Stem Cell
Technology for Use in Treatment of Hearing Loss
May 2011 -
Hair Cell Regeneration Update from
Dr. Stefen Heller
February 2011 - Nasal Stem Cells Could Tackle
Childhood Hearing Problems
July 2010 - Researchers Cook Up First Recipe
for Functional Hair Cells from Stem Cells
June 2010 - Stem cells can possibly
re-establish hearing
May 2010 - Scientists create functional
inner-ear cells
March 2009 - New Stem Cell
Therapy May Lead to Treatment for Deafness
September 2008 - Deafness Research
UK excited about gene therapy breakthrough
October 2007 - Stem Cell Research
Reveals Improved Hearing Possible
April
2007 - Cochlear Stem Cells May Lead to
Repaired Hearing
February
2007 - Stem Cell Transplants Possible
Hearing Loss Treatment
November 2005 - You may remember Stefan Heller as
the researcher who identified stem cells within the inner ear back in
2002. Following his discovery, the idea of treating hearing loss using
stem cells really took off. Dr. Heller has just moved his lab to
Stanford to take advantage of California's progressive views on stem
cell research. Here's the press release, which
includes a good overview of his current work and his plans for future
research.
More on this and related
topics
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September 2012
Deaf gerbils 'hear again' after stem cell cure,"
BBC News has reported. "UK researchers have taken a huge step forward in
treating deafness" the broadcaster added. This news, reported in most
places today, is based on a study that examined the possibility of
treating a specific type of deafness known as auditory neuropathy. This is
a condition where specialised nerve cells involved in hearing become
damaged or die, for reasons that aren't fully understood. In this study,
the researchers experimented by replacing the damaged nerve cells with new
ones grown from human stem cells. Stem cells are essentially biological
"building blocks" that have the ability to transform into a wide range of
specialised cells, including nerve cells. They then injected these new
cells into the inner ears of deliberately deafened gerbils, and measured
their responses to sound both before and after the transplant.
Full Story
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July 2012
But a simple experimental procedure that Connor
enrolled in for Madeleine may have restored her hearing and reversed her
condition. In January 2012, Madeleine, 2, became the first child to
undergo an experimental hearing loss treatment through an FDA-approved
trial at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center that infused stem cells
from her own banked cord blood into her damaged inner ear. Within the last
six months, Connor says she's seen a dramatic improvement in Madeleine's
ability to hear. "Before, when she would hear something she would look all
around," Connor said. "But now we notice that she turns in the right
direction of the sound." Madeleine was also able to speak for the first
time, Connor said. For more than two decades, umbilical cord blood
transplantation -- either by a baby's own cord blood or another's,
depending on the type of procedure -- has been used to treat otherwise
fatal diseases including blood disorders, immune diseases, and some types
of cancers.
Full Story
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June 2012
Stem cells, or other replacement cells, provide
new options treating illnesses or disorders resulting from cell loss in
the body. Stem cells have the capacity to turn into other types of cell
and can be obtained from various sources, including the patient. We
examine one potential way that stem cell replacement could prevent
age-related hearing loss by preventing degeneration of certain cells of
the cochlea. The cochlea's ability to transduce acoustic energy,
delivering signals perceived as sound, declines with age. Hearing
frequency ranges for humans at birth is from 20 Hz to 20 kHz, and
presbycusis occurs between 16 kHz to 18 kHz, progressing lower and
resulting in speech difficulties and localizing sound in noisy
environments.
Full Story
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April 2012
US researchers have begun a groundbreaking trial
to test the potential of umbilical cord blood transplants, a kind of stem
cell therapy, to treat and possibly reverse hearing loss in infants. The
phase I trial follows promising studies on mice showing that such
transplants were able to rebuild the structures of the inner ear, and some
anecdotal evidence from humans, sparking hope of a cure for some forms of
deafness. One of those people is two-year-old Finn McGrath, who suffered
brain damage after being deprived of oxygen during a prolonged and
complicated delivery, according to his mother, Laura. "His doctors told us
he was at high risk for cerebral palsy, vision issues, hearing problems
and mental retardation," she said in an interview with AFP. Finn's early
days were an all-out struggle to survive, so for his parents, learning
that he had failed his hearing tests and had damaged hair cells -- the
sensory receptors in the inner ear that pick up sounds -- was almost an
afterthought.
Full Story~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
May 2010
Scientists have made delicate ear cells in a dish
paving the way for a cure for deafness. Grown in their thousands, the
delicate hairs could be transplanted into the inner ear, restoring hearing
to millions. Some confidence-zapping balance disorders could also be
eased, the researchers believe. The breakthrough - which comes after 10
years of painstaking research - could also speed the search for new drug
treatments that could prevent people from becoming hard of hearing.
Age-related hearing loss affects one in two Britons aged 60 and over and
there is currently no way of holding it at bay. Although it is often
dismissed by younger people as a minor irritation, it can have a
devastating effect on self confidence and cause sufferers to become
socially isolated.
Full Story
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November 2009
Currently, stem cell transplant is not allowed in
some countries like the United States, some European countries, and South
Korea unless it gets a market approval through clinical trials as new
pharmaceutical drugs undergo. Chloe had to travel outside of the United
States and to Japan or China where (the treatment facility) established
stem cell clinics. More than 2,000 patients with various diseases have
been treated with stem cell therapeutics through (the treatment facility)
since 2008. Chloe's hearing was tested two months after the procedure was
completed on October 16, 2009. The results were spectacular. The left ear
improved to 50% from 0%. The right ear gained almost complete hearing.
Full Story
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August 2009
Results: The authors found that HSC migrated and
engrafted into the cochlea of the deaf mice and that the levels of
engraftment correlated with both the severity of damage and the treatment
dose. Analysis at 60 days post-treatment showed that the mice in the HSC
treatment group had well-repaired cochlea with dramatic hair cell regrowth,
while control mice showed no sign of repair or hair cell regeneration.
Conclusion: The study shows dramatic repair of
cochlear damage in mice after intravenous infusion of cord blood HSC,
suggesting a potential therapeutic strategy using cord blood stem cells in
hearing rehabilitation therapies.
Full Story~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
April 2009
Stem cells may help deaf people hear again,
according to early stage research by British scientists. A team at the
University of Sheffield said on Thursday they had discovered how to turn
stem cells into ones that behave like sensory hair cells or auditory
neurons, which could then be surgically inserted into the ear to restore
lost hearing. Lead researcher Marcelo Rivolta said the approach, which is
being tested on animals, held significant potential but was a long way
from being offered to patients.
Full Story~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
January 2009
In a watershed moment for one of the most
contentious areas of science and American politics, the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration cleared the way for the first-ever human trial of a medical
treatment derived from embryonic stem cells. Geron Corp., a Menlo Park,
Calif., biotechnology company, is expected to announce Friday that it
received a green light from the agency to mount a study of its stem-cell
treatment for spinal cord injuries in up to 10 patients. The announcement
caps more than a decade of advances in the company's labs and comes on the
cusp of a widely expected shift in U.S. policy toward support of embryonic
stem-cell research after years of official opposition. "This is the dawn
of a new era in medical therapeutics," said Thomas B. Okarma, Geron's
president and chief executive officer. The hope that stem-cell therapy
will repair and regenerate diseased organs and tissue "goes beyond what
pills and scalpels can ever do." Limits on stem-cell research, which
prevented federal funding and were imposed by Congress and former
President George W. Bush for ethical and religious reasons, have had a
chilling effect on both academic and corporate research involving such
cells. Proponents of stem-cell research say restrictions have delayed
development of promising new treatments, while critics contend that
harvesting stem cells from embryos destroys human life.
Full Story~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
September 2008
According to an Italian research team publishing
their findings in the current issue of Cell Transplantation (17:6),
hearing loss due to cochlear damage may be repaired by transplantation of
human umbilical cord hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) since they show that a
small number migrated to the damaged cochlea and repaired sensory hair
cells and neurons. For their study, the team used animal models in which
permanent hearing loss had been induced by intense noise, chemical
toxicity or both. Cochlear regeneration was only observed in animal groups
that received HSC transplants. Researchers used sensitive tracing methods
to determine if the transplanted cells were capable of migrating to the
cochlea and evaluated whether the cells could contribute to regenerating
neurons and sensory tissue in the cochlea.
Full
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