Aerosmith's Steven Tyler is one time again hitting the high notes of "Dream On" thanks in part to a Northwestern University business professor.

"We're equal opportunity," says Northwestern's John Ward with a laugh. He allows he is "more of a classical and jazz guy" than an aficionado of Tyler & Co

Earlier this year, Tyler had a unique form of experimental surgery to repair a popp kin vessel in his throat. The action at Massachusetts General Hospital featured a thin laser snaking from one side his iconic mouth and down into his legendary pipes.

Today, says Tyler "I'm back in action. . . I can do the whole Janis Joplin thing."

The singer was treated with a puls potassium-titanyl-phosphate (KTP) laser, the latest and principally promising procedure to come on the outside of Massachusetts General's voice center Quick splits of green laser light, lasting just 15 milliseconds, zapped Tyler's wasted blood vessel, sealing it without touching it.

uniform the slightest tweak in Tyler's throat could have altered the good of "Walk This Way," his signature air

A paper just published at Steven Zeitels in the Annals of Otology, Rhinology & Laryngology reports effective and "relatively safe" treatments in 39 singers, using the pulsed-KTP laser in one cases and an earlier incarnation, a yellow-light laser, in others.

"This is profoundly affecting the way we treat vocal disorders," says Zeitels, who performed the surgery forward Tyler.

Zeitels' research is partially foundationed by the Institute of Laryngology and Voice Restoration, which was started by the agency of a handful of grateful patients, including Ward.

Four years ago, Ward had lay opened two cancers on his vocal cords. In three surgeries throughout several months, Zeitels was able to abstract the larger tumor and eliminate the other by dint of cutting off its blood endue with the yellow-light laser. That saved Ward's voice, and he continues to give lecturings

"Dr Zeitels not merely saved my life but my career as well," said Ward, 60 In appreciation, Ward, co-director of the Center for Family Enterprises at Northwestern's Kellogg place of education of Management, helped launch the institute.

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