{"id":35619,"date":"2017-03-26T20:02:39","date_gmt":"2017-03-27T03:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/03\/scientists-have-turned-spinach-into-beating-human-heart-tissue"},"modified":"2017-06-04T07:07:37","modified_gmt":"2017-06-04T14:07:37","slug":"scientists-have-turned-spinach-into-beating-human-heart-tissue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/03\/scientists-have-turned-spinach-into-beating-human-heart-tissue","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Have Turned Spinach Into Beating Human Heart Tissue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6iUrxGo9gZs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Researchers have successfully used spinach leaves to build functioning human heart tissue, complete with veins that can transport blood.<\/p>\n<p>To tackle a <a href=\"http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/ajt.13665\/full\">chronic shortage of donor organs<\/a>, scientists have been working on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/new-3d-printer-produces-first-ever-life-sized-ear-muscle-and-bone-tissues-from-living-cells\">growing various tissues<\/a> and even whole organs in the lab. But culturing a bunch of cells is only part of the solution \u2014 they simply won\u2019t thrive without a constant blood supply.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s notoriously difficult to build a working network of fine blood vessels (also called vasculature), especially when you get down to capillaries, which are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vhlab.umn.edu\/atlas\/physiology-tutorial\/blood-vessels.shtml\">only 5 to 10 micrometres wide<\/a>. Blood vessels transport the oxygen and nutrients that a lab-grown tissue sample needs to grow and function.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/scientists-have-turned-spinach-into-working-human-heart-tissue\">http:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/scientists-have-turned-spinach-i...art-tissue<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers have successfully used spinach leaves to build functioning human heart tissue, complete with veins that can transport blood. To tackle a chronic shortage of donor organs, scientists have been working on growing various tissues and even whole organs in the lab. But culturing a bunch of cells is only part of the solution \u2014 [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35619"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58304,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35619\/revisions\/58304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}