Biomedical engineers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute are working on a patch for diseased hearts which uses spinach leaves.
When mixed with the human stem cells, the veins in spinach could become heart muscle which pumps blood when the original organ is infected or damaged.
“And so we haven’t actually put blood in there we put dye in there and we put small particles that represent blood cells and those flow right through the leaves,” said the biomedical engineering professor Glenn Gaudette.
During the process green of the spinach is removed, just leaving just cellulose structure. Afterwards, the cellulose structure is mixed with human, adult stem cells and also parsley stems to create tissue that mimics heart muscle with veins and arteries.
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Ideally, the tissue would be implanted in the humans to restore hearts ability to pump blood.
Aside from the spinach, engineers are exploring possibility of using the other vegetables. Gaudette said that more plants could be called into service for treatment.
“We look at bamboo for example for bone replacement and we’re starting to look at different structures that have three dimensions. Broccoli and cauliflower for example that have a three dimensional structure similar to lungs,” Gaudette said
But the human testing is years away.
Mrudula Duddempudi.
