{"id":823309,"date":"2026-07-24T15:28:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T15:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/823309\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T15:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T15:28:09","slug":"discovery-lays-foundation-for-gene-therapy-in-hereditary-deafness-mcknight-brain-institute-university-of-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/823309\/","title":{"rendered":"Discovery lays foundation for gene therapy in hereditary deafness \u00bb McKnight Brain Institute \u00bb University of Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Michelle Jaffee<\/p>\n<p>A new mechanistic discovery in a hereditary form of deafness could pave the way for using gene therapy to \u201ctune\u201d the ear\u2019s sound-sensitive hair cells and change life for babies born with an inability to hear due to Usher syndrome.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mbi.ufl.edu\/wordpress\/files\/2026\/06\/DSC04488-scaled.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"680\" height=\"453\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/DSC04488-680x453.jpg\" alt=\"Doctor Jonathan Bird is working in the lab with another researcher\" class=\"wp-image-77209\" style=\"width:415px;height:auto\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The preclinical discovery in mice comes at a time of great excitement about the potential of inner-ear gene therapy to initiate or restore hearing: Just last month, the FDA approved the first-ever gene therapy for inherited deafness, for a similar but distinct condition caused by mutations in the otoferlin gene.<\/p>\n<p>Now, researchers hope they can follow a similar path for children born with the rare and devastating Usher syndrome, which causes combined deafness and blindness.<\/p>\n<p>In a paper published in Nature Communications, a research team co-led by University of Florida neuroscientist <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.ufhealth.org\/bird-jonathan\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jonathan Bird<\/a>, Ph.D., and collaborators at the University of Virginia and the University of Colorado describe how mutations in the MYO7A gene may affect a tuning mechanism required for auditory hair cells to detect sound.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Michelle Jaffee A new mechanistic discovery in a hereditary form of deafness could pave the way for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":823310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,66],"class_list":["post-823309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/823310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}