Popeye’s Favorite Food Could Help Make Damaged Hearts “Strong To The Finish”

U.S. researchers believe they have solved a big problem in regenerative medicine: how to get blood flowing in developing tissue. Establishing a vascular system – blood vessels down to the tiny capillary scale that deliver oxygen, nutrients and essential molecules – is not an easy undertaking. Worcester Polytechnic Institute scientists experimenting with spinach cultured beating human heart cells on leaves stripped of plant cells. They ran fluids and blood cell-size microbeads through the spinach vasculature after seeding the plant veins with human cells that line blood vessels. Their findings suggest that multiple spinach leaves could be used as a scaffolding to grow layers of healthy heart muscle to treat heart attacks.  [ Image credit: © Worcester Polytechnic Institute  ]