Researchers from the University of Wisconsin have been able to successfully grow a vocal cord using real tissue. A research paper detailing the breakthrough was published in the Science Translational Medicine journal on Wednesday.

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The vocal cord is said to resemble real tissue and has proven to be capable of sound transmission.

For the experiment, the scientists extracted tissue from a cadaver and four other healthy patients who had their vocal cords removed.

The collected tissue were then "isolated and purified" to enable them to grow from the mucosa. After the purification stage, the tissue were applied to a 3-D collagen scaffold that is similar to what is used to grow artificial skin in a laboratory.

After 14 days, scientists observed that the cells began to develop into pliable and strong connective tissue. Aside from its similarity to real vocal cords, the said bioengineered body part had the ability to create a "basement membrane", which created a barrier and protected it from irritants and pathogens.

Researchers tested the organ's ability to create sound and vibrate. They confirmed that the organ can indeed create sound and vibrate by attaching them to larynges taken from cadaver dogs, and blowing warm air through them.

They also discovered that the organ was not rejected by the body. Scientists inserted the body part into mice and it workked properly.

"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," said speech pathologist Dr. Nathan Welham, an associate professor of surgery at UW.  

Tagsvocal cord, bioengineered vocal cord, bioengineering, artificial organ, artificial vocal cord, university of wisconsin, health technology, science transational medicine