Jean Bennett on gene therapy as a treatment for blindness Jean Bennett of the University of Pennsylvania on gene therapy as a treatment for blindness http://www.CharlieRose.com. By: Charlie Rose … Continue reading →

Uniqure Gene Therapy Info. By: Arjun Chakroborty … Continue reading →

By Steven Reinberg HealthDay Reporter WEDNESDAY, April 23, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Australian researchers say that gene therapy may one day improve the hearing of people with cochlear implants, allowing them to appreciate music and hear in noisy environments. In experiments with deaf guinea pigs, senior study author Gary Housley and colleagues found that inserting genes in the area of the cochlear implant and passing an electric charge through the implant stimulated the growth of cochlear cells. "Our study found a [new] way to provide safe localized delivery of a gene to the cochlea, using the cochlear implant device itself. The gene acts as a nerve growth factor, which stimulates repair of the cochlear nerve," said Housley, a professor and director of the Translational Neuroscience Facility at the University of New South Wales, in Sydney. The cochlear implant is surgically placed in the cochlea, in the inner ear. The implant works by using a line of small electrodes within the cochlea to selectively stimulate cochlear nerve fibers at different positions and enhancing different sounds, or frequencies, Housley explained. "In the cochlea of a person with good hearing, sound vibrations are encoded by sensory cells, called 'hair cells,' which stimulate the … Continue reading →

The electrodes in a cochlear implant can be used to direct gene therapy and regrow neurons. Growth factor: The cochlear nerve regenerates after gene therapy (top) versus the untreated cochlea from the same animal (bottom). Researchers have demonstrated a new way to restore lost hearing: with a cochlear implant that helps the auditory nerve regenerate by delivering gene therapy. The researchers behind the work are investigating whether electrode-triggered gene therapy could improve other machine-body connectionsfor example, the deep-brain stimulation probes that are used to treat Parkinsons disease, or retinal prosthetics. More than 300,000 people worldwide have cochlear implants. The devices are implanted in patients who are profoundly deaf, having lost most or all of the ears hair cells, which detect sound waves through mechanical vibrations, and convert those vibrations into electrical signals that are picked up by neurons in the auditory nerve and passed along to the brain. Cochlear implants use up to 22 platinum electrodes to stimulate the auditory nerve; the devices make a tremendous difference for people but they restore only a fraction of normal hearing. Cochlear implants are very effective for picking up speech, but they struggle to reproduce pitch, spectral range, and dynamics, says Gary Housley, … Continue reading →

A new study out of Australia has promising potential for patients across the globe who use cochlear implants. Photo by Flickr user ryanjpoole A new study outlines how gene therapy could reverse hearing loss and deafness. This may be music to the ears of the roughly 300,000 patients across the globe that depend on cochlear implants to hear. Australian researchers published their findings Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine. By stimulating gene cells, which were injected into the ear canal with electrical impulses, chemically deafened guinea pigs were able to regrow auditory nerve cells. The scientists used guinea pigs as test subjects because of the similarities between the ear canals of humans and guinea pigs. While the researchers noted just how effective cochlear implants have been to date in helping those with profound hearing loss, they also noted their limitations. They hope to overcome those limitations through their research. People with cochlear implants do well with understanding speech, but their perception of pitch can be poor, so they often miss out on the joy of music, said the studys senior author Gary Housley, a professor of neuroscience at the University of South Wales. The cochlea is a tiny seashell-shaped … Continue reading →

Australian researchers are trying a novel way to boost the power of cochlear implants: They used the technology to beam gene therapy into the ears of deaf animals and found the combination improved hearing. The approach reported Wednesday isn't ready for human testing, but it's part of growing research into ways to let users of cochlear implants experience richer, more normal sound. Normally, microscopic hair cells in a part of the inner ear called the cochlea detect vibrations and convert them to electrical impulses that the brain recognizes as sound. Hearing loss typically occurs as those hair cells are lost, whether from aging, exposure to loud noises or other factors. Cochlear implants substitute for the missing hair cells, sending electrical impulses to directly activate auditory nerves in the brain. They've been implanted in more than 300,000 people. While highly successful, they don't restore hearing to normal, missing out on musical tone, for instance. The idea behind the project: Perhaps a closer connection between the implant and the auditory nerves would improve hearing. Those nerves' bush-like endings can regrow if exposed to nerve-nourishing proteins called neurotrophins. Usually, the hair cells would provide those. Researchers at Australia's University of New South Wales … Continue reading →