Animal stem cell studies point to new orthopedic therapies

Developers studying new stem cell therapies for orthopedic injuries could learn a lot from the researchers working in the veterinarian field.

MIT Technology Review reports that lax regulatory procedures in veterinarian medicine has allowed researchers to push ahead with new stem cell therapies that would often be held up in a painfully slow review required for humans. And with valuable racehorses and big purses at stake, new therapies are being used in horses after a relatively cursory discovery program.

"Regulatory oversight of veterinary medicine is minimal," says Sean Owens, director of the Regenerative Medicine Laboratory at the University of California, Davis. "For the most part, the USDA [U.S. Department of Agriculture] and the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] have not waded into the regulatory arena for us."

Now Owens and his colleagues are advancing new orthopedic research work in animals and then taking what they've learned and applying it to human stem cell therapies. Programs designed to test stem cell therapies to repair tendon tears and fractured bone chips in the knees of horses are being run more along the lines of what you would expect to see in a human clinical trial. And then they plan to take what they've learned in the animal studies and pursue new therapies for humans.

- read the report from MIT Technology Review