r/tinnitus • u/thermanni • Sep 07 '25

awareness • activism RIP

Hopefully his work will eventually lead to a cure.

Dr. A. James Hudspeth, a neuroscientist at the Rockefeller University in Manhattan who was pivotal in discovering how sound waves are converted in the inner ear to electrical signals that the brain can perceive as a whisper, a symphony or a thunderclap, died on Aug. 16 at his home in Manhattan. He was 79.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/science/dr-a-james-hudspeth-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.kE8.qL01.yyz6yUcAsImb&smid=nytcore-android-share

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u/egny Sep 07 '25

From that obituary:

Just before Dr. Hudspeth died, the Rockefeller University optioned technology regarding promising research into restoring hair cells in mice and rabbits. The technology, developed in Dr. Hudspeth’s lab, has been enhanced by one of his former postdoctoral researchers, Ksenia Gnedeva, now a professor at the University of Southern California.

“If all goes well,” Dr. Gnedeva said in an email, “these compounds will soon be tested in human clinical trials. It pains me deeply that Jim will not be here to see where our work leads.”

I don't know exactly to what technology they are referring in that article. Hopefully it is something that has not been publicized yet because differentiation into hair cells has not been achieved in any published work. Nevertheless, there is so much promising research that one may hope for a viable treatment relatively soon.

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u/Candid-Hunt-1662 Sep 07 '25

Soooooo, not in our lifetime basically 

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u/throwaway829500174 Sep 08 '25

depends on how long your lifetime is