A ‘miracle cure’ for deafness? For people like me, here’s why that isn’t our dream
By Oliver James Campbell,
The Guardian
| 05. 13. 2024
As someone who has been hard of hearing since I was a teenager, I read with great interest about the case of Opal Sandy – the 18-month-old British toddler who has recently had her hearing “restored” in a pioneering medical trial.
Opal was born with auditory neuropathy, which is caused by the disruption of nerve impulses travelling from the inner ear to the brain, and which left her completely deaf. But after taking part in what is being heralded as a “groundbreaking” gene therapy trial at Addenbrookes hospital in Cambridge, she can now hear almost perfectly.
It’s fantastic news that this little girl can now hear. She will no longer have to go through the negative situations that people with hearing loss often face. She won’t experience being self-conscious about her hearing, as I did as an adolescent, nor the difficulties of meeting new people, such as having to ask them to repeat themselves again and again. She won’t miss out on job progression because of her hearing loss. What is often required to get on in a company...
Related Articles
By George Janes, BioNews | 01.12.2026
A heart attack patient has become the first person to be treated in a clinical trial of an experimental gene therapy, which aims to strengthen blood vessels after coronary bypass surgery.
Coronary artery bypass surgery is performed to treat...
By Staff, ScienceDaily | 01.05.2026
Scientists at UNSW Sydney have developed a new form of CRISPR technology that could make gene therapy safer while also resolving a decades-long debate about how genes are switched off. The research shows that small chemical markers attached to DNA
...
Following a long-standing CGS tradition, we present a selection of our favorite Biopolitical Times posts of the past year.
In 2025, we published up to four posts every month, written by 12 authors (staff, consultants and allies), some in collaboration and one simply credited to CGS.
These titles are presented in chronological order, except for three In Memoriam notices, which follow. Many more posts that are worth your time can be found in the archive. Scroll down and “VIEW...
By Jonathan Matthews, GMWatch | 12.11.2025
In our first article in this series, we investigated the dark PR tactics that have accompanied Colossal Bioscience’s de-extinction disinformation campaign, in which transgenic cloned grey wolves have been showcased to the world as resurrected dire wolves – a...