four deaf children were able to regain their hearing thanks to gene therapy

Four deaf children have regained their hearing in China. This is the case of little Yiyi, six years old. Born deaf, until today she could only hear thanks to a cochlear implant, that is to say a box placed inside and on the skull.

But his life is changing thanks to this clinical trial. And it’s his mother who demonstrates the results in a video.

In this video, we see the mother removing Yiyi’s implant and talking to him while hiding her lips: “Can you hear me ?” she asks. “Yes”replies the little girl with a smile on her lips before naturally starting a discussion with her mother without the help of her implant.

A deficiency of a protein necessary for the transmission of vibrations

Scientists therefore resorted to a gene therapy technique. The principle is to introduce genetic material into cells to treat diseases, particularly genetic ones. However, deafness, in most cases, has genetic origins. In this clinical trial, researchers at Fudan University in Shanghai targeted otoferlin. This is an essential protein for transmitting sound vibrations to the brain, which these young deaf people unfortunately lack. And the results are encouraging since of the first five children to receive the treatment, four can now hear normal conversation, even whispers.

This is a world first but other teams elsewhere in the world are trying to treat hereditary deafness, in France in particular, but also in the United States, the United Kingdom and Spain. Several biotechnology companies have started or will begin clinical trials after conducting conclusive tests on mice. Here again, gene therapy methods are used but researchers intend to develop different techniques to be able to attack the different forms of deafness.