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Jonathan Welham Vocal Case Summary

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It is a common fact that everyone deserves a voice, but for researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison this is taken very literally. Dr. Nathan Welham is the leader of a team of scientists at UW-Madison who recently engineered a total replacement for vocal folds. Welham is a doctor within the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health Department of Surgery specializing in voice disorders. After seeing many patients who could not be helped with the current treatments, Welham decided he wanted to tackle the big problem. With his patients as his motivation, Welham began with the goal of understanding how cells in the vocal folds behaved. There were a number of things to keep in mind while attempting to create tissue that could behave like vocal folds. …show more content…

In addition, people’s immune systems must not reject the tissue after transplant has occurred. Dr. Welham and his team did not expect their engineered tissue to as successful as it was. Not only did it perform well, it was also accepted by the immune system. As a result of this profound discovery, Welham has been bombarded with attention from the media. Before the vocal tissue research, he had very little media exposure leaving him to feel unprepared for the sheer amount of interviews that took place. Welham’s schedule was cleared for interviews for 2-3 weeks after the findings were published. He receieved a wide range of attention from social media to BBC and even having the story covered on the Today

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