Gene therapy restores hearing to children with inherited deafness

Given our overall density, we would need enormous wings and musculature. Consider that the heaviest flying birds alive today weigh maybe 40lbs and have a wingspan of 8ft or so. If we naively extrapolate that linearly then an adult weighing 160lbs would need a 32ft wingspan.

There were flying pterosaurs that weighed much more than the heaviest flying birds today, but they were also the size of small planes and it’s a bit of a debate how well they even flew. They may have struggled to even take flight.

So injecting yourself with some designer DNA isn’t just going to make you grow wings, it would have to completely transform you into a completely different creature, simply due to the physics of flight.

Additionally, you need not only to be able to fly, but your body needs to function well enough to stay in this new state. You would also likely need an enormous caloric intake to support the massive new growth, or it would take a very, very long time.

It wouldn’t be designing wings for a human, it would be designing a be creature based on a human but not human at all, really. Call me shortsighted but I don’t really see how that will ever be possible.

It might prove easier to grow biological pylons for external jet engines...

Some viruses will just inject the DNA into cells, but will not become part of the cell's genome ("transient" transduction). Other viruses (like lentiviruses and these adeno-associated viruses [AAVs]) inject their DNA not just into the cells, but also have machinery that splices their payload DNA directly into the cell's chromosomes ("integrated"). The location in the genome of the splicing event is relatively random. Random is not necessarily great as it could interrupt other genes already in the chromosome. CRISPR is a now-famous tool that helps "integrate" DNA into a specific spot in the genome by being guided to a specific location with a small piece of a specific sequence.

Once the DNA is integrated, any cell, and any of the cell's progeny, will produce or "express" the gene on the delivered DNA. In this case, they delivered the 5991 characters of DNA associated with the OROF gene [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otoferlin

I can understand things like that get harder and harder as you become adult. That it's absolutely not possible beyond a certain age I think is just a commonly held belief that doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

What is this age limit where you've never seen anyone be able to gain that skill? I'm sure there are counter-examples.

I doubt the whole world will respect that.

Political problems are situations where different elements of society are fundamentally at odds with each other over one option vs another. Freedom vs security, progress vs conservation, reform vs tradition - these are all cases where there are strong arguments on both sides and there fundamentally isn't a right answer. No one is politically in favor of death due to curable disease - eliminate the technological issues that tie curing the disease to something people actually politically oppose, like say higher government spending, and the political opposition goes away.

Are they maybe "opposed" to been seen like that because there was no hope for any solutions besides just being OK with it?

In the future when it's more accessible and cheaper, shouldn't being born without hearing be considered a "fault" of sorts, as you can now introduce this sense to them, like most others being born with hearing at birth?

I don’t know of any language agnostic phonetic sign used as a first language for children: that sounds about as hard as making them learn through writing instead of talking.

But none of the current options are risk free, and I doubt this one will be. They all have risks, side effects, and probably the chance of failure. And then the question is how low of a risk is acceptable to restore a child's hearing. These are people who would live an otherwise healthy and normal life, and they'd grow up in an accepting deaf family which is likely already plugged into a community. I can't imagine how it would feel to have a serious side effect (or worse) impact your child when you know they could have gone without that procedure and lived a happy, fulfilling life. But I also understand the desire to give your child every possible opportunity.

All of that is to say, I think it is reductive to compare this to child abuse or FGM. There's no right decision, and parents absolutely will need to make a difficult choice, hopefully prioritizing their child's safety and future above all else.

I've got relatives that teach deaf children. most deaf kids who grow up in societies with mostly hearing kids, want to be normal more than anything. At the same time, for many who are eligible for cochlear implants, getting that early before speech development begins in earnest is very important, ideally when they're just a toddler or younger. Early enough and you'll barely notice any difference in their speech, understanding, etc. However, their parents often decline it and say they want to let their child be the one to choose when they're old enough to- which is far, far outside the best window for developing that area of the brain, as well as speech. They might be behind in those ways for the rest of their lives if they're not given therapy to help catch up.

I understand both sides I guess, but if consent is the issue, why not give them the implant and let them choose to disconnect the receiver then when they're older? Obviously, because they won't want to, and rarely ever do.