Vocal cords for the first time grown in the laboratory

UWlogo_ctr_4cFor vocal cords, producing sound is no mean feat. They need to be flexible enough to vibrate, but tough enough to withstand smacking together over a hundred times per second. If our whole bodies were subjected to an equivalent force, we’d be ripped apart.

Now, for the first time, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have grown this superhero-like tissue in the lab, using human vocal cord cells as their raw ingredients. Their hope is to one day implant these engineered vocal cords into patients so they can recover their voices.

Laboratory grown vocal cords have already been transplanted to mice with human immune system and the animals did not reject them. Tissue-engineered vocal cords in the laboratory were also tested on dogs’ larynxes. Although the new technology is nowhere near-ready for use in the clinic, but the idea might not be completely far-fetched: these tissues are both strong and stretchy enough to produce sound.

“It represents hope,” said Dr. Ramon Franco, medical director of the Voice and Speech Laboratory at Massachusetts Eye and Ear, a speciality hospital in Boston, who was not involved in the study. “I have patients who are severely hoarse. There aren’t a lot of options.”

Other engineered organs of the throat have been tested in human clinical trials. These include tracheas, the tubes that lead into the lungs, and larynxes, which hold the vocal cords and allow for breath. But the vocal cords themselves are trickier to engineer because they need to vibrate under so much pressure.

Right now, treatments for damaged vocal cords include injecting steroids or other substances to soften up scar tissue. But this approach usually offers only temporary relief for the millions of Americans with impaired vocal cords. “Often the materials are absorbed by the body after a few months and you’re back at square one,” said Nathan Welham, a speech-language pathologist at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, and one of the creators of the new lab-grown tissue.

Source: http://www.statnews.com

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