Nov 17, 2009

Arthritis in the dog, Man’s Best Friend or Man’s Best Model?

A common question is “when will this be available for humans?” New therapies do take longer to be allowed in people, but the good news is that Vet-Stem has collected very valuable data from the thousands of dogs and horses that we have helped veterinarians treat for OA and tendon and ligament injuries. The dog is actually a very good model for human osteoarthritis. Dogs are also prone to similar soft tissue injuries such as cruciate ligament ruptures (ACL, knee injury) and tears, conditions that veterinarians have seen great improvement in healing by using stem cells.

This data is important because it shows results from dogs that have naturally occurring osteoarthritis or ligament injuries and not a created model to mimic the disease. What that means is that human researchers can actually learn from the clinical cases that Vet-Stem has helped treat. This provides information that would normally take many years to obtain.

In one of my many roles at Vet-Stem I routinely speak at human Stem Cell conferences so that I can share our data with my human based colleagues. I am honored to be the key note speaker at the upcoming IFATS (International Federation for Adipose Therapeutics and Science). It gives me great pleasure to share with others what we have learned from the dog and horse cases in hopes that it will help bring this treatment to the human side quicker. I will of course be sharing information that I learn at IFATS in future blogs.

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