A better gene therapy vector out of Harvard is credited with restoring normal hearing in mice
A research team at Boston Children’s has tested out a new vector for a gene therapy that significantly improved hearing in mouse models for Usher syndrome, the most common genetic disease that triggers deafness as well as blindness in its victims.
A better vector – marking an improvement over an earlier model – meant that the therapy could do a better job in correcting the performance of outer hair cells in the cochlea, amplifying signals to inner hair cells that emit signals to the brain. And that allowed the rodents to hear sounds below 80 decibels, in 19 of 25 mice, with a few able to hear sounds as soft as 25 decibels.
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