Source: www.dailymail.co.uk
Author: Fiona Macrae

The stage may soon be alive with the sound of her famous voice once more. Dame Julie Andrews could have her vocal cords, which were ruined during a throat operation, restored by one of the world’s leading scientists.

The Sound Of Music Star has been unable to sing since disastrous surgery to remove non-cancerous throat nodules in 1997. But a breakthrough by chemical engineer Robert Langer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US, could give her back the clear soprano voice that won her many a lead role. He has created a rubbery gel that restores the elasticity to damaged and scarred vocal cords.

Trials on rats and ferrets were successful, and the first human patients, perhaps including Dame Julie, could be treated in as little as a year. Professor Langer, who is collaborating with the singer’s voice specialist Dr Steven Zeitels, said: ‘So far the animal trials have been promising. It appears safe in animals.

‘We hope we can start a clinical trial on this gel in a year or two.

‘I don’t want to promise we’ll do it on Julie Andrews but she has been a big proponent of it.’

Dame Julie, who received a £600,000 pay-out after the botched operation, is a regular visitor to the Professor’s Boston laboratory. The scientist said: ‘She can’t really hold a note. She had a five octave voice at one point.’

The treatment could help anyone whose voice may have been strained by frequent public speaking, such as politicians. Throat cancer patients and babies who breathed on a ventilator may also benefit.

Dame Julie claimed the routine operation ruined her ability to sing and ‘precluded her from practicing her profession as a musical performer. The British-born star said: ‘Singing has been a cherished gift, and my inability to sing has been a devastating blow.’

In one interview, she said she now only had ‘a wonderful, deep, bass voice of about five notes and that’s about it’. Recent roles have been adapted to suit her limited range. Speaking around a year after the botched procedure, her husband, Blake Edwards, said: ‘I don’t think she’ll sing again – it’s an absolute tragedy.

‘She was told she’d be OK in six weeks, that the voice would actually be better.

‘It’s [been] over a year, and if you heard it, you’d weep.’

Born in Walton-on-Thames in Surrey, she shot to international stardom in the Sixties in Mary Poppins and The Sound Of Music. Her other films include Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Tamarind Seed, Duet For One and A Fine Romance. Now 73, she has been married to Edwards, a US movie director, for 40 years.