大象传媒

"Our vocal cords are made up of special tissue that has to be flexible enough to vibrate, yet strong enough to bang together hundreds of times per second. It's an exquisite system and a hard thing to replicate鈥� says Dr Nathan Welham, an associate professor of surgery in the University of Wisconsin Madison School of Medicine and Public Health.

Unlike other tissues in the body that heal after an injury, vocal cords scar and stiffen leading to voice loss. The few treatments available are borrowed from plastic surgery and cannot fully restore the function of this highly specialised tissue.

Together with colleagues from several disciplines, Dr. Welham bioengineered vocal cord tissue able to transmit sound.

This tissue performed better than the current standard surgical treatment for voice disorders. The vocal cord implants were tested in a dog larynx and in mice. With further development, this lab-grown tissue could offer a promising treatment option for patients with voice disorders.

The research was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

(Video credit Dr Nathan Welham, University of Wisconsin-Madison)

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