🌅 Scientists Restored Hearing in Deaf People

SOURCE

Qi et al. (2025)

WHAT TO KNOW

• A new study by an international team of researchers describes a groundbreaking gene therapy that successfully restored hearing in people born deaf. The study included 10 participants who received a single injection of a crucial hearing gene directly in the ear. After six months, all 10 participants’ hearing thresholds improved, moving from an average of 106 decibels (meaning they could only hear things as loud as a lawn mower or chainsaw) to 52 decibels (meaning they could hear normal conversation). Some participants reported improvement within a month.

WHY IT MATTERS

• The therapy corrected mutations in the OTOF gene, which, without getting lost in the weeds, produces a protein that triggers the electrical signal from your ear that your brain translates into sound. The researchers created a working copy of the OTOF gene and inserted it into a harmless synthetic virus engineered to deliver the genetic material via injection directly into cells located in patients’ ears. OTOF is one of more than 200 genes whose mutations are known to cause deafness.

CONNECT THE DOTS

• Hearing loss affects more than 1.5 billion people around the globe, including about 430 million people with hearing loss serious enough to require rehabilitation. Around 60% of deafness in newborns has genetic causes, with the OTOF gene causing deafness in roughly 5% of cases. The team says OTOF is just the beginning, as they now have their sights set on a gene called GJB2, whose mutations are the most common cause of genetic hearing loss.