AMSTERDAM (Web Desk) – While it remains an established scientific fact that over one-third of the senior citizens in the world suffer from the moderate hearing loss, there is no drug available in the market which can cure hearing loss despite extraordinary advancements in medicine.
However, there is a ray of hope as Dr Albert Edge along with his team from Dutch company Audion Therapeutics are now developing a drug which could potentially cure hearing losses in humans. The drug is currently being tested on animals and will soon clinical trials on humans are expected soon.
Albert started the project Regain when he noticed that the side effects of the drugs used for Alzheimer treatment were exactly the same what they need to cure hearing loss in human beings.This was a major breakthrough.
Afterwards, he started testing the modified drug on mice and in results he found that the hair cells in mice’s cochlea had begun to respond better.
But what is the possible connection between and hearing loss? Actually, humans owe their hearing to oscillating cilia deep in the skull, a snail-shaped cochlea located inside the inner ear, which has 4 rows of hair cells that bend with sound’s vibration opening up pores to activate the electric signal towards the brain.
Each ear contains 15000 non-regenerative hair cells which when damaged through sound trauma or loud noises, permanently bends in a way rendering the cells useless.
According to Dr Albert, there is no set trajectory on how long will it take to enhance the drug to the point where it will be safe and effective for human just like animals, but, many pharmaceutical companies have reported promising results.
It’s relevant to mention here that the idea for treating hearing loss was actually inspired by a songbird which also loses its hair cells due to physical trauma or loud noises but has the natural ability to regenerate hair cells in its inner ears.
