Zhu Yangyang babbles away like a typical happy three-year-old, calling out for "mama" and "papa" and accurately naming colors -- a remarkable achievement considering he was completely deaf just months ago. He is one of five children whose hearing was restored through a revolutionary new gene therapy in a clinical trial led by Chinese and American researchers, offering new hope for those born with a rare genetic mutation. Yangyang's mother Chang Yiyi says she was moved to tears when she realized, around three weeks after the treatment last September, that Yangyang could hear her knocking on the door.
"I hid in a closet and called for him, and he still responded!" she told AFP in an interview from Shanghai. The results of the study, published in the prestigious journal Nature Medicine, mark the first time the procedure was performed on both ears. This led to significant improvements in speech perception and the ability to locate the source of sounds compared to treatment in just one ear.
"This is absolutely a turning point," Zheng-Yi Chen, the study's senior author at the Eaton-Peabody Laboratories at Mass Eye and Ear, told AFP, adding companies are now conducting clinical trials, including two in Boston, with the goal of moving towards regulatory approval. "If the results hold, without any complications, I think in three to five years, it may be a medically approved product," he added. There are around 26 million people globally with genetic forms of deafness, with this partic.