Gene Therapy for Congenital Deafness- The Hearing Review, September 2015

Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School have been working on restoring hearing in mice that have a genetic form of deafness. Although gene therapy is not ready to enter into clinical trials yet, this breakthrough can help to improve hearing in individuals that have hearing loss caused by genetic mutations. The gene of focus for research is the TMC1 because this gene most commonly causes genetic deafness. This gene accounts for 4-8% of all cases and it’s primary function is to encode a protein that helps to convert sound into electrical signals that travel to the brain.