-
Asked by nateleya to Anzy, Aoife, Dave, Matt, Tomasz on 15 Nov 2013.
-
David Christensen answered on 15 Nov 2013:
Hi nateleya,
Animals have stem cells in them the same as us and scientists have collected embryonic stem cells from many different animals as well as humans. This means that stem cells work in the same way in animals as they do in humans. Maybe in the future people will pay for expensive stem cell treatments for their pets, when they get sick.
-
-
Matthew Tomlinson answered on 15 Nov 2013:
Definitely, animal stem cell work and regenerative medicine is going to happen in the near future. There are a couple of reasons for this, firstly the are less regulations when you are developing a treatment for animals rather than humans so it is less expensive to produce the treatment and there is less risk for the company developing it. And secondly these treatments serve as evidence that the treatment will work in humans, meaning that the company can use the animal work as evidence that a clinical trial in humans could work.
I think the reason why it will happen is not only because people love their pets, but also some animals are really valuable, imagine being able to use stem cells to repair an expensive racehorse’s broken leg, some people will pay huge amounts of money for that. So yes, I do think it will happen in the future.
-
Aoife O'Shaughnessy-Kirwan answered on 15 Nov 2013:
Hi nateleya,
I actually work with mouse embryonic stem cells. As David says all animals have stem cells which have similar properties as the human stem cells. I’ve seen a presentation about a trial of treatment for a disease called Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy recently actually where they used a cell therapy to help a dog who was affected by a similar disease.
Comments