Hearing Loss and Genetic Therapy: Saaim Khan's Story and Research | Hearing Well

How do you come to terms with hearing loss? In this episode of “Hearing Well” Saaim Khan explains his history with hearing loss, and how it inspired him to embark on a journey to try and find a way to remedy hearing loss. He describes how he decided to focus on genetic therapy, and helping families understand how genetic mutations can lead to hearing loss.
“Hearing Well” is a series from the Museum of Science that explores the world of the Deaf community and the science of hearing loss. The series highlights the stories of three members of the Deaf community and how they relate to Deafness.
Saaim Khan is a student at Harvard University. He is deeply passionate about spreading research education to the public and has received international recognition for his research. He is also a researcher at Boston Children’s Hospital conducting a case-control genomics analysis for children with various types of hearing loss to determine effective diagnoses for children who remain without one.
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[@susanne5803]

Thank you very much for sharing your story!
- I have a question about the birds. If they can regenerate their hearing there must be evolutionary pressure in the form of repeated hearing loss. What makes birds lose their hearing repeatedly?
- How would genetic therapy work with sudden onset hearing loss with children? There must be many different genetic causes. And maybe many are caused by more than one gene?
- Could people with Usher syndrome profit from this research? It would be so great if they would not lose both main communicative senses and are left with touch communication only.
Best wishes!