Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial

independent.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 351 posts

Re: Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial

#11

Post by dotnet00 »

tyingq wrote: post #3

Is "auditory neuropathy" something where there isn't any other existing treatment that directly addresses the issue versus compensating for it (like cochlear implants)?

The 'neuropathy' part is meant to imply that the issue isn't with the hearing mechanism itself, but rather with the part that allows the mechanism to communicate with the brain. In this case, the expression of a specific gene causes the creation of a specific protein which plays a role in the transmission of audio to the brain. This gene was either not present or malfunctioning, so they added the proper gene manually.

Re: Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial

#12

Post by dotnet00 »

foobarian wrote: post #4

[flagged]

Her condition is a genetic disorder, which is a kind of disease. The deaf 'community' consists of many kinds of deafness, some are not diseases, others are. Some of those diseases cannot be cured, others are trivial to cure.

In the same way there are many different kinds of cough, some due to diseases, others not, some curable, others not, yet no one pretends it's offensive to talk about curing a cough. This weird excessive sensitivity to language accomplishes nothing.

Re: Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial

#14

Post by anthony__j »

screye wrote: post #7
foobarian wrote: post #4

[flagged]

Science doesn't (and shouldn't) care for how people socialize around a disability. I recognize the power and a reclaimed self worth that comes with reframing narratives around deafness. The lack of hearing is a disease. Because diseases are nominatively about being at dis-ease. As long as it's difficult for deaf people to socialize with those who outside the community, it dis-eases them.

like someone mentioned in a separate comment, you are conflating disease with disability here. when people become too old to walk without assistance, you wouldn't say that they have a walking disease.

Re: Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial

#17

Post by pugworthy »

porterbeats wrote: post #13
foobarian wrote: post #4

[flagged]

I'm deaf in one ear and 70db loss in the other, just wanted to say nobody cares what you call it as long as you aren't an asshole about it. Being pediatric helps nobody

Did you mean pedantic (annoyingly corrective) or pediatric (child(ish))?

Re: Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial

#19

Post by moduspol »

thehappypm wrote: post #9

I’m optimistic that at some point, I’ll be able to get a treatment to take care of my red green color blindness. I’m well aware that it’s very much a first world problem, and rightfully should be very low on the totem pole of medical issues to cure. But goddamnit, I want to see red.

If it makes you feel better, red is overrated.

Re: Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial

#20

Post by tombert »

I hope CRISP and gene therapy are going to be the watershed moment in medicine that they appear to be.

I heard a Radiolab about CRISPR like 8 years ago, and I remember thinking "if this is even half as cool as it sounds, then this is utterly amazing". It feels like a whole slew of disease will just stop being problems, and I look forward to the results of it.

Of course, I'm not a biologist, and I don't really understand any aspects of this stuff, so I have an extremely lay-person understanding of all this, but it seems insanely cool.

Post reply on HN