Scientists turn spinach leaf into working human heart tissue

i find this amazing! i'm not really into using animals for replacement human parts, but this is a whole new ball game... just wow!

linky

Researchers have turned a spinach leaf into working human heart tissue. Scientists struggle to make large-scale human tissue – while they have had success in creating small lab samples, it is much more difficult to make them at the size of tissues, bones or whole organs. But that's what will be needed if the tissue proves useful in the treatment of disease or injury. Now they have come closer to solving perhaps the hardest of those challenges ,and creating a vascular system that can deliver blood into the new tissue. Until now, it has been hard to recreate the tiny, branching network of blood vessels using techniques like 3D printing. But researchers have solved it by turning to plants – and turning plants into tissue.

a reply to: ladyteeny

So...Popeye was for real?

Popeye knew this.
edit: phage beat me to it.


If I understood this right, they are basically using the spinach tissue to channel a bloodlike fluid through it and inject cells into the stream that deposit on site, using the tissue as a placeholder, probably slowly re-/ or overgrowing the spinach tissue? This is genius.

Breathtaking!

Where to even begin oh my.

That they're using those SOFT leaves, does make sense in a certain way.

Then again, that's an annual plant. Sure, the clipped leaves can keep a couple weeks under refrigeration...

But damn!

Perennials are where they should be looking. Spinach great PR for the vegan crowd I suppose, but there are certain very specific plant species I know about that you can store the leaves in room temp in ziplock bags for over a year with nearly no attention whatsoever.

That this lot had the idea and the balls alone to expect that plat tissues could serve as a viable biochemical intermediary for such, and actually got a working case study, this is as brilliant as it gets folks!

I'll have some blood with my spinach...gag.

Just eat the spinach.

a reply to: intrptr
Make pancake dough with a bit salt but instead of a whole pancake, make little round spheres by steering. eat with spinach (prefered creamy and with pepper, salt and muscat). For extra kick, mix a teaspoon of strawberry marmalade into it, when on your plate.

bonafide.

a reply to: verschickter

WoW, taste buds tingling.

I (used to) grow green spinach, nothing like a tossed salad with raw, fresh, crisp, organic grown spinach.

I knew there were no pesticides, sprays or chemicals of any kind on it or in it.

a reply to: intrptr
until the day you see your neighbor walking around, in his driveway that is uphill from you, with a tornistor on it´s back, spraying roundup on his tiles so nothing can grow in the small space between them.

and then it begins to rain...

originally posted by: verschickter
a reply to: intrptr
until the day you see your neighbor walking around, in his driveway that is uphill from you, with a tornistor on it´s back, spraying roundup on his tiles so nothing can grow in the small space between them.

and then it begins to rain...

They do that on our sidewalks around here, on ivy.

Legally they can only spray roundup on weeds, away from where kids play and pets sniff, but no one told the gardeners, who don't wear suits or even masks while applying it to every border, the lawns, the sidewalks and ivy.

Agenda driven policy by an ignorant HOA board and secretive grounds maintenance agency, who would rather spray than use weed eaters or blowers to save on gas and man power.

Killing us softly...

a reply to: ladyteeny

Wow. Yes, amazing.