Could Julie Andrews get her voice back?
Published: 26 October 2009
Author: Naomi Isaacs
[ 4 ] Recommendations
Could Julie Andrews get her voice back?
The hills could once again be alive with the sound of music. Legendary actress and singer Julie Andrews could be given her dulcet tones back thanks to pioneering new voice box research.
The star is expected to be one of the first people in the world to have man-made tissue injected into her voice box after surgery left her vocal chords badly scarred.
74-year-old Andrews, who found fame as nun-turned-nanny Maria in the Sound of Music, underwent a throat operation in 1997 to remove non-cancerous nodes from her throat, but the botched surgery left her unable to sing.
Robbed of her legendary four-octave voice, the actress filed a lawsuit against the hospital, eventually settling out of court for an estimated $1 million.
Now revolutionary new research, led by award-winning scientist Professor Robert Langer of MIT and Dr Steven Zeitels of Harvard Medical School, could give Andrews her beloved voice back.
The dynamic duo have led development of a new technique whereby scar tissue can be removed from the vocal chords and replaced with a man-made gel called polyethylene glycol.
The non-toxic synthetic substance is specifically designed to behave just like a vocal chord, mimicking its elasticity.
So far the substance has only been tested on animals, but its successes so far mean human testing could begin within the next two years. Dame Julie, who has been involved in the project since its launch in the US seven years ago, could be one of the human first guinea pigs.
It is not just vocalists who could benefit from the breakthrough; the procedure could give hope to a wide group of patients who have undergone larynx surgery, including people who have lost their voices entirely.
SIDEWAYS News for fresh perspectives
