6 percent of the US population has some type of a voice disorder — from those with scarring from overuse to those with laryngeal cancer.

Researchers at MIT and Harvard have developed a synthetic gel material that promises to revitalize damaged vocal cords in humans. The gel, which this research team has been working on since 2002, mimics human vocal cords and could help millions of people with voice disorders.

According to an in-depth article from MIT today, the FDA would classify the gel as an injectible medical device rather than a drug. The medical solution would likely be injected every six months if approved for human use, as the material breaks down over time. These researchers have submitted over a dozen papers around the voice restoration gel, have applied for a patent, and are currently working toward FDA approval.

The researchers have already tested the biocompatibility of the gel in dogs, with success: after 4 months the dogs showed no vocal cord damage. These researchers are now heads down on manufacturing high quality gel for human trials, which they hope to run on 10 patients next year.

Check out the video below:

From the article:

“What we did differently is we looked at this as a mechanical problem that we need to solve. We said, ‘Let’s not look at the scar itself as a problem, let’s think of how we can improve the voice despite the presence of the scar tissue,’” says Karajanagi, who is now an instructor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and a researcher at the Center for Laryngeal Surgery and Voice Rehabilitation at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Interested in learning more about this gel and these researchers’ road to human trials? We recommend you read the article in full here.