Dr. Lecturer Serkan Dikici from the İzmir Institute of Technology (İYTE) Department of Bioengineering, has performed a study that seems to indicate that decellularized spinach leaves are completely acceptable to the human body and can be used in many clinical studies, including wound healing.
Dikici stated that he started his studies at Sheffield University to develop biomaterials that imitate the 3-dimensional vein structure using spinach leaves, and continued to research the clinical applications of this structure at IZTECH.
It is quoted him as saying: “During my doctorate, I worked on the decellularization of spinach leaves. Of course, since it was a new material at the time, we first tested how suitable it was for the body. We now know that decellularized spinach leaves are completely acceptable to the human body. We can conduct artificial vascular studies or develop dressings that aid wound healing in the treatment of chronic wounds that do not heal on their own. We can also use them in a wide variety of other tissue engineering applications. The use of plant tissues has many advantages over animal tissue. We use plant tissues and are more convenient. We aim to develop a wide variety of biomaterials that are cost-effective, more available, and do not contain ethical concerns and do not pose a risk of animal-to-human disease transmission.”
“In the future, the clinical use of spinach or other plant leaves will become widespread. My work is also based on the use of spinach leaves in the treatment of chronic diabetic ulcers, which accelerates the healing of wounds and makes these wound treatments possible. Within the scope of this project, we investigated the potential of decellularization of two different leaves besides spinach leaves and the decellularization process. “We have passed the verification stages. We have now reached the stages of experimentation with human cells, and after all these experiments, we will also have an animal trial. In this way, we will have completed the preliminary tests step by step on the way to the clinic.”
Serkan Dikici added that he believes the project, which is planned to be completed in December 2022, will make a significant contribution to the world of medicine and science.
