Deaf since birth, some children in China can hear after gene treatment

Good news! Sometimes miracles do happen!

"... But this year her family, who live in a high-rise block in the city of Dongguan, enrolled her in a study of a new type of gene therapy. During the procedure, doctors used a virus to add replacement DNA to the cells in Yiyi’s inner ear that pick up vibrations, allowing them to transmit sound to her brain.

In less than a month, her mother says, she was hearing with the treated ear for the first time. ...
The feat is even more remarkable because until now, no drug of any kind has ever been able to improve hearing. ...
Otoferlin gene defects are the cause of around 1% to  3% of cases of inborn deafness, and there are only about 900 new cases a year in China, meaning the condition is rare. ...

The new treatment is designed to add a working copy of the otoferlin gene. Because of the gene’s large size—it is around 6,000 DNA letters long—it had to be broken into two parts, each packaged separately into millions of copies of a harmless virus. ... then carefully injects the loaded viruses deep into a fluid-filled chamber in a part of the children’s ears called the cochlea. ...

the children’s hearing improved, on average, from not hearing anything under 95 decibels (as loud as a motorcycle) to hearing sounds at 50 to 55 decibels—about the level of a regular conversation.

“They reach maybe 60% to 65% of normal hearing,” ..."

Deaf since birth, some children in China can hear after gene treatment | MIT Technology Review After gene therapy, Yiyi can hear her mother and dance to the music. But why is it so noisy at night?