103. Reverse Hearing Loss, Hypersonic Space Cannon, No Moving Parts Heat Engine

News <p><a href='https://news.mit.edu/2022/frequency-therapeutics-hearing-regeneration-0329'>Reversing hearing loss with regenerative therapy </a>| MIT News (01:28)</p> <ul><li style="font-weight:400;"><a href='https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_10/sr10_260.pdf'>Approximately 15% of American adults</a> (37.5 million) aged 18 and over report some trouble hearing.</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">The biotechnology company Frequency Therapeutics is seeking to reverse hearing loss — not with hearing aids or implants, but with a new kind of regenerative therapy.<ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Using small molecules to program progenitor cells – a descendant of stem cells in the inner ear — to create the tiny hair cells that allow us to hear.</li> </ul> </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">In more detail, progenitor cells reside in the inner ear and generate hair cells when humans are in utero, but they become dormant before birth and never again turn into more specialized cells such as the hair cells of the cochlea.</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Frequency’s drug candidate is designed to be injected into the ear to regenerate these cells within the cochlea.<ul><li style="font-weight:400;">already improved people’s hearing as measured by tests of speech perception</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">The company has dosed more than 200 patients to date and has seen clinically meaningful improvements in speech perception in three separate clinical studies.</li> </ul> </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">MIT Institute Professor Robert Langer talked on the study results: <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">“Some of these people [in the trials] couldn’t hear for 30 years, and for the first time they said they could go into a crowded restaurant and hear what their children were saying … It’s so meaningful to them. Obviously more needs to be done, but just the fact that you can help a small group of people is really impressive to me.”</li> </ul> </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">One company founder, Jeff Karp believes Freque