A majority of funds raised by the Institute of Laryngology and Voice Restoration (ILVR) are used to support ground-breaking research that is directed at improving the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of voice disorders.
The ILVR has been the main source of funding for the Voice Restoration Research Program which is a large collaborative effort between scientists and clinicians at Massachusetts General Hospital, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston University to develop methods for repairing scarred vocal folds.
The leading cause of voice disorders is the loss of pliability in vocal cord tissue due to scarring. Scarring of vocal cords is caused by a variety of conditions including heavy voice use, aging, surgeries and other treatments involving the larynx (eg. radiation therapy for cancer), exposure to environmental irritants and congenital conditions. Such scarring restricts or eliminates the vibration of vocal cord tissue that is essential for the production of human voice.
There is currently no viable method for restoring pliability to scarred vocal-cord tissue.
To solve this problem, researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital, under the direction of Drs. Steven Zeitels and Robert Hillman, teamed up with scientists from other departments at MGH, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to launch a comprehensive multi-disciplinary research project. Other major collaborators include Dr. Robert Langer and his tissue-engineering group at MIT, as well as Dr. Rox Anderson and his laser specialty group in the MGH Wellman Laboratory for Photomedicine.
ILVR support for the program has enabled the research team to attack the vocal-cord scarring problem at multiple levels. Some members of the team are working on developing vocal cord bio-implants using a variety of natural and synthetic substances that are designed to replace lost pliability. Other members are developing new surgical technologies that are needed to both prepare the vocal cord recipient site and place the implant. Still others are developing innovative approaches for assessing vocal cord function in terms of better imaging to differentiate healthy from scarred tissue, and ways to directly measure vocal cord biomechanical properties to assist implant design and testing.
Reversing long-term effects of aging: Success of the program will result in restoring voice to millions of people who are suffering from the problems associated with such voice loss including negative impacts on:
- everyday communication
- psychological well-being
- socio-economic function
The ILVR has participated in funding doctoral students pursuing voice research who are enrolled in the Speech and Hearing Biosciences and Technology PhD Program at the Harvard-MIT conjoint Division of Health Sciences and Technology.
Four of these students who recently received their PhDs are Dr. Cara Stepp (currently doing a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Washington), Dr. Asa Wehner (currently completing a Clinical Fellowship in Speech Pathology at Boston Children's Hospital), Dr. Yoko Saikachi (currently a staff scientist at the Riken Brain Science Institute in Japan), and Dr. Daryush Mehta (currently doing a combined Postdoctoral Fellowship at Harvard University and the Massachusetts General Hospital).
The ILVR has funded several research projects at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Voice Center to develop new laser technologies that have been shown to effectively treat dysplasia, cancer and papilloma of the vocal cords while preserving and/or restoring patients' voices. This treatment employs an angiolytic KTP laser which concentrates the laser energy in the diseased tissue and optimally spares the normal vocal cord tissue to preserve and/or restore the patient's voice.
The green light of the KTP laser is highly absorbed by red blood cells which enable it to selectively ablate the increased network of blood vessels (referred to as angiolysis) in diseased tissue while preserving healthy tissue. This new laser technology was pioneered for use in the operating room and outpatient setting by Dr. Steven Zeitels and his team at the Massachusetts General Hospital in collaboration Dr. Rox Anderson of the MGH Wellman Center for Photomedicine.
Mr. Guber hosts an evening in LA with Julie Andrews, Roger Daltrey & Steven Tyler
ILVR hosts an evening with Julie Andrews at the MGH Voice Center
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