Back to School on Stem Cells
Veterinarians are education junkies. We have continuing education opportunities nearly every week of the month, all year long. Vet-Stem has been a leader in providing education about regenerative medicine and we provide the ONLY nationally approved regenerative medicine training course for veterinarians. Over 3,000 veterinarians have been trained in the US in the last four years! If your veterinarian has not taken the course, recommend they go to the Vet-Stem webpage (www.vet-stem.com) and click on the button “Vet Login” in the upper right corner of the first page. They can register and take the FREE 3 hour course online at their own pace to become credentialed. More next time on what they can learn and how that benefits all the patients they might see, especially relating to arthritis in dogs, cats and horses.
I think it is really admirable that many pet owners will adopt from shelters and rescues, thereby giving that lucky dog or cat a whole new life. Those new pet owners have made an emotional as well as financial investment in their new family members. Besides behavioral issues, many dogs may have found their way into shelters because former pet owners could not afford the treatment and care for orthopedic issues. There are also dogs that have been lost or abandoned for some time, and as a result of being on the streets, may have suffered injuries that have not healed correctly. That is why I wanted to share the story of Tommy Boy, a gorgeous Golden Retriever rescue in the loving care of his foster mom Sarah through the SCGRR, Southern California Golden Retriever Rescue. Tommy ended up in a shelter and was originally misdiagnosed with bone cancer. He was taken to a foster home to die in a better setting. Follow up x-rays and then ultimately an MRI confirmed that Tommy didn’t have cancer but he had a horrible broken pelvis. Tommy’s veterinarian suggested stem cell therapy to see if an amputation of his rear leg could be avoided. The rescue then raised the funds for the surgery and Vet-Stem reduced the cost of the stem cell processing and a year later Tommy’s radiographs continue to show improvement. We wish Tommy and all the rescues out there that help special patients like Tommy a very Happy 2010!
I would imagine that none of you have ever been in a stem cell lab. It is a fascinating technology and the laboratory used at Vet-Stem is truly state-of-the-art. We have had hundreds of visitors tour the lab since the opening in 2003, but regular tours are not conducted while samples are being processed. We handle the fat sample shipped in by a veterinarian with great care and it is never opened to the room air. We open the sample tube only inside a sterile hood where the air is filtered through a HEPA air filter that removes contaminants such as bacteria or dust. Below is a look at one of the “hoods” for handling samples. 
Garry Jenkins, based in London, has written a great post about stem cells for dog arthritis on his blog Canine Health.