New Drug May Reverse Hearing Loss
MetalSucks has been writing about the importance of wearing earplugs to live shows since MySpace was still popular. Still, I strongly suspect most of us metal fans are totally fucked when it comes to hearing. Sometimes I leave a show and realize that my ears are ringing despite having worn earplugs; sometimes I don’t practice what I preach (because, as I’ve said in the past, concerts with plugs are like sex with a condom: pretty fucking good, but still vastly inferior); most times I’m reasonably certainly I’m listening to music on my phone at far too high a volume. It’s a weird thing about which to be even semi-lackadaisical, because hearing is really important (durrrr), but there you have it. I’m an idiot, and I know that a lot of my fellow metal fans are also big dumb dummies, and no amount of medicinal coffee in the world can save us from ourselves.
Luckily for all of us, our failure to properly protect our hearing may end up being a non-issue. The Atlantic reports that Dr. Albert Edge was working on a new drug to treat dementia when he discovered a possible unintended use for that medication: to regrow cilia, the sensory hair cells in the inner ear which “A loud sound can permanently bend or physically prune… rendering it ineffective.”
From the article:
“We thought, ‘These side effects in an Alzheimer’s patient are exactly what we’re looking for in treating deafness’,” says Edge. “So we decided to try that idea out in these mice.”
Dutch company Audion Therapeutics, of which Edge is a part, is working on a proof of concept for regeneration of human-ear hair cells. They are using compounds developed by pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and applying them locally to the inner ear. With funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 fund, which provides extra stimulus to promising but risky investments, animal tests are well under way as part of Project REGAIN. Audion is now planning its first small, human clinical trials.
It would seem that Edge and Audion even have a competitor:
Meanwhile, this year in Farmington, Connecticut, start-up Frequency Therapeutics’ patent filings indicate they have been developing ways to induce supporting cells to multiply, then become hair cells, using a notch inhibitor [similar to the one Edge/Audion utilize]. The procedure would involve releasing the drug locally, perhaps as a foam or using a tube in the tympanic membrane to send doses into the middle ear.
So does this mean that you can throw away those earplugs and go stand right next to the monitor at a Goatwhore show, secure in the knowledge that science will save your hearing? Not quite:
Unlike drug trials for long-treated ailments like rheumatoid arthritis, there is no development trajectory for something as new and different as hair cell regeneration. It is anyone’s guess how many years or, indeed, decades it will be before hearing-loss patients can benefit from these discoveries.
Hopefully they figure this shit out in our lifetime. And by “our,” I mean “my.” I don’t really care about anyone else. You people are really on your own.
ANYWAY, you can read the full article here.
[via Metal Injection]
