An injury to vocal cords is one of the known risks of several different surgical procedures as well as the anesthesia intubation during surgeries. Until recently, such injuries could only be treated by collagen injections. But for those with more serious injuries, the ability to speak can be impaired on a permanent basis.

The sounds that make up our voices are produced using the wind from our lungs and specialized tissues called vocal folds or cords that are found inside the larynx (or voice box.) We usually take for granted the ability to speak, but for an estimated 7.5 million people in the U.S., that ability is impaired. Loss of the ability to speak normally can have significant vocational as well as personal and social impact.

Scientists have now successfully grown vocal cord tissue in the lab. An article in Science Translational Medicine described how bioengineers at the University of Wisconsin have experimented with using tissues engineered from human cells that were then grafted into voice boxes.

They found that it can “produce realistic sound when grafted into voice boxes that have been attached to an artificial windpipe that blows air through them.” In the experiments, tests showed that the lab-grown tissue not only produced sound, but also vibrated in a similar way to natural tissues. They concluded that it is possible, in principle, to restore vocal cord function with such tissue. They also found that “when transplanted into engineered mice with human-like immune systems, the lab-grown tissue was well-tolerated and not rejected.“