Oscar Winner Julie Andrews' Voice May Be Restored by Groundbreaking Surgery

Academy Award winner Dame Julie Andrews may undergo revolutionary new surgery to try and restore her voice, according to the U.K.'s Telegraph newspaper. The actress, best known for her film roles in movie musicals such as Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music, famously lost her world-renowned soprano singing voice after a procedure to remove non-cancerous nodes from her vocal cords caused scarring in 1997.

Andrews may be among the first patients to undergo a new surgical treatment developed by Robert Langer of the Massachusettes Institute of Technology and voice specialist Dr. Steven Zeitels. Working together, the pair will remove scar tissue from the vocal cords before injecting a gel called polyethylene glycol to replace it. Designed by Langer and his team, the gel was specially designed to mimic the natural elasticity of vocal cords—no easy feat, considering the substance must be able to vibrate up to 200 times a second to properly produce sound. Lager notes that animal trials have been "very promising." No details about when Andrews would undergo the surgery, which could be made available to patients within two years, were released, though the team revealed the singer's throat has already been mapped in preparation.

Andrews made her Broadway debut in 1954's The Boyfriend, going on to orginate the roles of Eliza Doolittle, Guenevere and Victoria Grant in the original Broadway productions of My Fair Lady, Camelot and Victor/Victoria, respectively. Her numerous film credits include Mary Poppins, for which she won an Oscar, The Sound of Music, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Victor/Victoria and The Princess Diaries. Despite being unable to sing, Andrews has made a successful cross into voice-over work in recent years, recording childrens books and voicing characters in Shrek 2, Shrek the Third and Enchanted.

Before the initial botched surgery in 1997, Andrews had a four-octave range. She settled a medical malpractice suit against her New York-based surgeons out of court in 2000.