Frequency Therapeutics — Hearing Loss Regeneration

[IntotheBlue03]

So does that mean "it didn't reach levels of normal hearing" or "I don't know if it reached levels of normal hearing"?

Also how does that work? How can it be cumulative? It's not like you'll end up with extra regenerated hair cells.

By the way, do the progenitor cells disappear after regeneration or do they remain (so, for instance, if your regenerated hair cells got damaged, could you get the treatment again)? Because, according to the Tinnitus Talk Podcast interview, Frequency Therapeutics' approach to hair cell regeneration is to make use of progenitor cells which stem cell therapy destroys.

Furthermore, what do you know about the recent reports that those administered FX-322 reported changes after the trials were done?

THANK YOU especially for those of us affected by autoimmune disease! Tackling tinnitus at the root as opposed to through different disease states is exactly what needs to happen at this point!

 

[Joeseph Stope]

I mean... Bob Langer?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_S._Langer

...Jeff Karp?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Karp

It's great to have heroes... and these two individuals seem to be top notch... and fighting on our side...

But I'll wait for them to deliver.

Not one to get into the cat-fight over p-values and placebos...

 

[OptimusPrimed]

I think that it should work (and to some extent it has) but they don't know why it isn't working. Barring killing someone and cutting out their ear, there isn't really a way to determine why more ear hair cells aren't being generated or to even see the distribution of hair cells in the human ear after the injection of FX-322.

New hair cells likely are not attached to the auditory nerve.

 

[Diesel]

I think that it should work (and to some extent it has) but they don't know why it isn't working. Barring killing someone and cutting out their ear, there isn't really a way to determine why more ear hair cells aren't being generated or to even see the distribution of hair cells in the human ear after the injection of FX-322.

Sounds like from Kevin Franck's answer in the interview this week. They have some ideas what is happening. They just don't have any concrete evidence to rule anything in / out, so they can't comment definitively. This is actually really common. See my post: #19254.

 

[Survivor234]

Sounds like from Kevin Franck's answer in the interview this week. They have some ideas what is happening. They just don't have any concrete evidence to rule anything in / out, so they can't comment definitively. This is actually really common. See my post: #19254.

It's kind of frustrating. We need a way to better image the ear. It seems to be that FX-322's effectiveness will be completely mitigated until we have a way to better understand what it is we're doing.

New hair cells likely are not attached to the auditory nerve.

I believe that one of Otonomy's drugs are supposed to repair or regenerate auditory nerves. Paired with this do you think it would work?

 

[Lucifer]

I can't wait for the Phase 2b trial results coming out near the end of the year which should prove if there are any audiogram improvements like the Phase 1b trial as this time they will be testing up to 16 kHz instead of the 8 kHz in Phase 1b.

 

[ThomasF]

Looking at the results graph posted earlier... While a great deal of people only saw close to none or up to 10% improvement, some did see great improvement and others saw greater than 10% improvement in word recognition. And these results are with a single dose of treatment. I'd say this argues that a series of treatments might be a future possibility.

Honestly the fact that it works at all shows a significant amount of progress.

 

[Diesel]

It's kind of frustrating. We need a way to better image the ear. It seems to be that FX-322's effectiveness will be completely mitigated until we have a way to better understand what it is we're doing.

To quote a close doctor friend:

"You'd be amazed how many drugs in every day use there are that work but we have no idea exactly what they're doing."

 

[DimLeb]

I don't know how the speech in noise recognition (and similar tests) really work and what they show about our ability to hear sounds, but I know for sure how sound works after being a sound / music producer for over a decade.

There is a series of frequencies in each millisecond of a sound that you need to hear in order to perceive it. If, for whatever reason, you hear half of them well and half badly, you hear only some of them, or you hear most but not all, your ability to perceive goes down. Just like hearing a voice at your front versus behind a wall.

Word recognition, in its essence, is a sum of those audio spectrums/ms and how well you hear the frequencies of each letter/vowel/etc of each word in order to be able to form an idea of what you just heard.

So, I believe it's impossible to have improvement in word recognition without improvement in audiograms or in frequency spectrum in general. Let's hope further trials show something like this.

 

[dbeats]

I don't know how the speech in noise recognition (and similar tests) really work and what they show about our ability to hear sounds, but I know for sure how sound works after being a sound / music producer for over a decade.

There is a series of frequencies in each millisecond of a sound that you need to hear in order to perceive it. If, for whatever reason, you hear half of them well and half badly, you hear only some of them, or you hear most but not all, your ability to perceive goes down. Just like hearing a voice at your front versus behind a wall.

Word recognition, in its essence, is a sum of those audio spectrums/ms and how well you hear the frequencies of each letter/vowel/etc of each word in order to be able to form an idea of what you just heard.

So, I believe it's impossible to have improvement in word recognition without improvement in audiograms or in frequency spectrum in general. Let's hope further trials show something like this.

To my understanding, a theoretical improvement with FX-322 in audiograms would require complete damage to one of the hair cells around the frequency being measured during pure tone testing.

Let's say the regrown hair cells are under or over 8 kHz. This should somewhat improve your word recognition, but because of the simplistic nature of pure tone testing, this frequency on the audiogram would stay the same.

 

[serendipity1996]

New hair cells likely are not attached to the auditory nerve.

This is not the case and has been known for a decade - Robert Jackler from the Stanford Initiative to cure hearing loss mentioned that regrown hair cells come with intact synaptic connections that link up with it and called it a 'miracle'. Also, Frequency's own studies have shown that regenerated hair cells come equipped with these.



(from 28:50 onwards)

 

[Diesel]

This is not the case and has been known for a decade - Robert Jackler from the Stanford Initiative to cure hearing loss mentioned that regrown hair cells come with intact synaptic connections that link up with it and called it a 'miracle'. Also, Frequency's own studies have shown that regenerated hair cells come equipped with these.

(from 28:50 onwards)

Thank you for sharing this, really insightful overall. The insights shared from both Dr. Jackler and Dr. Heller about hearing loss, tinnitus, and how they thought regeneration might initially take place. It was interesting to hear Jackler mention that the first patients to benefit from hearing loss regeneration will probably be those with simple hair cell loss, and notable hearing loss. They can get some hearing cells back and therefore some hearing responsiveness back, but in a way that might make hearing aids work better. It's interesting that we're now seeing this prediction materialize 10 years later with FX-322.

 

[Survivor234]

To quote a close doctor friend:

"You'd be amazed how many drugs in every day use there are that work but we have no idea exactly what they're doing."

Yeah. Melatonin has been shown to scientifically work to reduce severe or chronic tinnitus but we have absolutely no idea why it does.

 

[Gb3]

Assigned study dose will be delivered while you are lying down. Your eardrum will be numbed and the injection will take place through the eardrum. After the injection, you will continue lying down with the injected ear facing up for 20-30 minutes.

This is from the screening for the 208 clinical trial. Why are they having people lie facing up instead of lying on your side!

 

[GregCA]

Melatonin has been shown to scientifically work to reduce severe or chronic tinnitus but we have absolutely no idea why it does.

Sounds interesting. Could you please post the scientific study that shows this? I saw one related to sleep & tinnitus, where the main measures were THI and PSQI, but not perceived volume (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16455366/). Is there another one that shows it reduces "severe or chronic tinnitus"?

 

[ajc]

Sounds interesting. Could you please post the scientific study that shows this? I saw one related to sleep & tinnitus, where the main measures were THI and PSQI, but not perceived volume (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16455366/). Is there another one that shows it reduces "severe or chronic tinnitus"?

Is this one such study? Audiometric tinnitus matching was one of the metrics measured.

 

[GregCA]

Is this one such study? Audiometric tinnitus matching was one of the metrics measured.

Yes! That is one, thanks!

 

[Geatly]

I don't know how the speech in noise recognition (and similar tests) really work and what they show about our ability to hear sounds, but I know for sure how sound works after being a sound / music producer for over a decade.

There is a series of frequencies in each millisecond of a sound that you need to hear in order to perceive it. If, for whatever reason, you hear half of them well and half badly, you hear only some of them, or you hear most but not all, your ability to perceive goes down. Just like hearing a voice at your front versus behind a wall.

Word recognition, in its essence, is a sum of those audio spectrums/ms and how well you hear the frequencies of each letter/vowel/etc of each word in order to be able to form an idea of what you just heard.

So, I believe it's impossible to have improvement in word recognition without improvement in audiograms or in frequency spectrum in general. Let's hope further trials show something like this.

You are probably not a really good producer, since I am a music producer too who has just very slightly damaged his ears, I have perfect audiogram and yet I can feel a difference, and what I have lost slightly is clarity and the ability to filter out sounds as well as before.

 

[DimLeb]

@Geatly, lol I don't know what's up with that first assumption, but I expressed my opinion being in the sound industry for a decade now. That's why I highlighted the need for new inner ear testing/screening methods for these conditions some posts above.

 

[Diesel]

@Geatly, lol I don't know what's up with that first assumption, but I expressed my opinion being in the sound industry for a decade now. That's why I highlighted the need for new inner ear testing/screening methods for these conditions some posts above.

I think we'll see new testing methods once the regen drugs are established.

 

[Lucifer]

Anybody have access to this? Can you please upload the poster for all of us to see.

 

[Gb3]

Anybody have access to this? Can you please upload the poster for all of us to see.

View attachment 48747

Who cares? It's already been disclosed.

 

[Geatly]

Who cares? It's already been disclosed.

Man, why are you here? Everytime you say something, it is something negative towards anything that could lead to hearing restoration.

 

[Gb3]

Man, why are you here? Everytime you say something, it is something negative towards anything that could lead to hearing restoration.

MYOB.

 

[GoatSheep]

MYOB.

Why should he? You don't mind yours. You were trying to get the Suicidal thread closed. Stop being an ass all the time.

 

[Survivor234]

MYOB.

It becomes someone's business when you sit around being rude to other people. If you interact with others or participate in the same space as them, yeah it becomes their business. Don't want to mix your business with theirs? Then don't interact with them.

Get rid of this entitled sense of privilege, treat others well, and maybe we'll play nice.

 

[Lucifer]

I was not expecting these posts backing me up. I was going to say something yesterday about the reply I received for my previous post but thought there was no point. I'm glad some of you said something today.

There is a saying treat others like you want to be treated. It doesn't hurt to be kind to others. If you don't have something nice to say to someone, it's best to stay quiet.

 

[NYCGuy]

I was not expecting these posts backing me up. I was going to say something yesterday about the reply I received for my previous post but thought there was no point. I'm glad some of you said something today.

There is a saying treat others like you want to be treated. It doesn't hurt to be kind to others. If you don't have something nice to say to someone, it's best to stay quiet.

I totally agree with you.

 

[star-affinity]

This is not the case and has been known for a decade - Robert Jackler from the Stanford Initiative to cure hearing loss mentioned that regrown hair cells come with intact synaptic connections that link up with it and called it a 'miracle'. Also, Frequency's own studies have shown that regenerated hair cells come equipped with these.

(from 28:50 onwards)

At 0:44:37 tinnitus is being brought up.

It is said that when the nerves going to a hair cell loses that hair cell they become "irritable" and "being to rhythmically discharge" and that would be the cause of tinnitus. Sure seems that could be the case for at least my most intrusive tinnitus. I sure hope getting those hair cells back would make the nerves connect and be happy and calm again.

Thanks for sharing the video!

 

[Chad Lawton]

I was not expecting these posts backing me up. I was going to say something yesterday about the reply I received for my previous post but thought there was no point. I'm glad some of you said something today.

There is a saying treat others like you want to be treated. It doesn't hurt to be kind to others. If you don't have something nice to say to someone, it's best to stay quiet.

Don't mind the Eeyores.