Can we really turn Spinach Leaves into Beating Human Heart Tissue

“That spinach on your plate deserves more credit. Not only is it packed with folic acid and other health benefits, it could also help scientists regenerate human tissue.” said Amy Klinkhammer of Discovery Magazine. In many new up in coming articles such as the ones cited above, the world discusses the scientific discovery of tissue regeneration. Spinach leaves are proving not just to be an average healthy vegetable. Spinach is a vegetable with many healthy powerful antioxidant compounds, power boosting properties, eye and brain health, and heart health. What a coincidence it helps the heart. With this research I have discovered that scientist are using the spinach to help build human heart muscle. This could in turn help people with heart and later even organ damage, if these scientists figure out how to improve this technology. This technology is used to build a system of new veins and blood vessels for organ tissue. In Discovery’s research they are working on scaling products from the small samples of spinach into full-fledged organs. They are covering that organ regeneration of the spinach in these tiny petri dishes. Klinkhammer discusses that there are limiting factors such as constructing a working vascular system to help transport nutrients and blood through the tissue they make out of these spinach leaves. Robert Ferris of CNBC gave information discussing the fact that plants already have similar vascular systems to the human body that carry nutrients. Throughout the articles researched Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the University of Wisconsin, Arkansas State University, and the University of Nova Gorica in Slovenia were discussed on this new technology. Amy Klinkhammer research had showed, Glenn Gaudette a biomedical engineer at Worcester Polytechnic Institute had the advanced technology of a 3D-printing, but discovered there is enough branching networks of capillary like channels in these spinach leaves to carry single blood cells. 3D-printing being used does not at this time have the ability to grow small, delicate blood vessels. The next step for these scientists was to take out the plant cells so they could be replaced with human blood cells.“Researchers used a process called decellularization to strip plant cells from the spinach using detergent, which left behind the scaffolding of its vascular channels. Then, researchers embedded human heart cells to the framework where they grew and started pumping. The nutrient transport system in the spinach life was small and sturdy enough to transport microbeads, which the researchers used as mock blood cells, through layers of developing cardiac cells”, said Klinkhammer. This process leaves a basis of cellulose that can be manipulated and used to make this tissue. “Cellulose is biocompatible [and] has been used in a wide variety of regenerative medicine applications, such as cartilage tissue engineering, bone tissue engineering, and wound healing,” said Delaney Chambers Of National Geographic. This could over time save many lives. Currently "100,000 patients can be found on the donor waiting list at any given time and an average of 22 people die each day while waiting for a donor organ or tissue to become available.", said Ferris. There are other projects in the works in the conclusion of these articles. Parsley, wormwood and peanut roots are other plants that are being used to make working human organs.

People of all ages in the end will benefit from this new discovered technology. The scientist in many different parts of the United States and even the world are coming up with new way and creating new technology to design and make these plants into living human organ tissue. The building of these new tissues for organs will help cure, eliminate, and even just prevent certain diseases and injuries as a whole. People who have to get parts of their liver or other body parts cut out can have these scientist in the future make them new parts. Other examples would be those like burn victims and people with cancer. While they are working on making a heart they also have research out there on other plants being used for the same process. This is an outstanding discovery that change the world of medical research and help improve our health care as a whole. Though I can not determine what will work and what will not work, I would like to continue my research and watch updates. Health care takes care of all the people in the United States. This discovery can help our health care workers define cures and perfect new chances to save lives. Treatment of disease is something people in the healthcare field strive for all the time. Whether it is to cure disease, prevent disease, or just introduce new research. This article has been catching my attention for many weeks and I have a blog that I am currently doing and I thought this article would fit perfect in my collection. After seeing headline after headline in the news, on social media, I decided with this In The News assignment I had my topic. This topic seemed like it would be amazing topic to cover and to do research on. The article explains itself on why I had chosen this research.