|
About Polymers to Restore
The Sound of Music?
In the near future, people who have
lost their voice may be able to have it restored thanks to a
flexible polymer being developed by Harvard and MIT scientists.
The new material mimics the movements of the vocal cords.
The development could help those who
have scarred vocal cords, such as children whose cords were
damaged from intubation during surgery, victims of laryngeal
cancer, or even those who have strained their cords from overuse.
About 6% of the U.S. population has some kind of voice disorder,
says Sandeep Karajanagi, a former MIT researcher who developed the
polymer while working as a post doc in a university lab.
To make their material mimic the
movement of human vocal cords, the team started with polyethylene
glycol (PEG), which is widely used in the cosmetics industry, and
altered the chemical linkages between its molecules. This change
allowed them to control the polymer’s viscosity and elasticity.
Tests have shown that when air is blown through a model of the
vocal cords made from the altered PEG, the model moves in a way
that real vocal cords do.
The polymer is not intended to heal
scarred tissue. Instead, it is designed to make the whole tissue
flexible enough to restore vibrations to normal. The idea is to
have the polymer gel injected under the tissue membrane - the thin
layer of cells that covers the vocal cords - forming an additional
layer within. The gel could have different physical
characteristics to have varying vocal effects for people with
different voices.
Ref: by Dale McGeehon , Exclusive to
Polymer Solutions News,
http://www.polymersolutions.com/psi-newsletter-archive/september-2012/
* * * * *
|
