For those of us in the dance community who might have stood just a little too close to the bass bins throughout the duration of their raving career, the possibility of hearing loss is all too real. However, new research indicates it might be treatable in the not-too-distant future.
A report in The Atlantic this week details how Dutch Biopharmaceutical company Audion Therapeutics might have inadvertently stumbled across the cure while testing a drug that regrows hair cells in mice. A surprise side effect is that the drug also helps regenerate the damaged sensory hair cells in the inner ear that are associated with deafness.
“It is anyone’s guess how many years or, indeed, decades it will be before hearing-loss patients can benefit from these discoveries,” The Atlantic reports. “Still, this challenge of bringing a product to market has the atmosphere of a race.”
Check out “Human Hearing Loss Could Be Reversible” in The Atlantic for the full report.
