IF there are any lessons the Covid-19 pandemic has taught us, it is that deforestation, exploitation and consumption of wildlife and intensive animal agriculture all increase the risk of zoonotic diseases and threaten human health and well-being.

Humans are aware of this link between animal exploitation and disease outbreaks, which is the reason why China announced a ban on wildlife trade in an effort to contain the Covid-19 outbreak.

In the United States and elsewhere, the sale of plant-based meat alternatives increased by over 200% during the coronavirus lockdown, according to media reports.

In the Netherlands, the mink fur industry went into an early shutdown after minks were found to have contracted coronavirus and transmitted it back to humans. There are now calls to shut down mink farms in Spain and the US as well.

It would be premature to celebrate these as victories. Humans have short memories, and their desires and appetites are often alarmingly disconnected from what their intellect knows to be beneficial to their health, social justice and animal and environmental well-being.

Humans in general rarely question their relationship with the natural world. This is attributable to speciesism - the assumption of human superiority and an inherent "right" to use and exploit animals.

Despite scientific evidence and historical data strongly indicating that six out of 10 known infections and three out of four emerging infectious diseases originate from animals, there is still widespread resistance against ending animal agriculture and the breeding of animals for the pet, sport hunting, entertainment and fur industries. Supporters of these industries argue that it would put too many people out of work and cause economic loss.

We know from the study of human history and civilisations that human society is resilient and adaptable, and that industries and occupations have become obsolete in the past without causing significant or lasting damage.

Racism is what makes Western society believe that China ought to be pilloried for its wildlife trade and live animal wet markets, but that it is perfectly all right to confine calves in small solitary enclosures and induce iron deficiency to produce veal, or to confine and force-feed ducks and geese and induce liver disease to produce foie gras.

Speciesism is what makes human society understand that animal agriculture puts a huge strain on the planets resources, that animals in farms and laboratories suffer in ways that are never considered acceptable for even the worst of humans to suffer, and that humans can live healthy and productive lives without eating or exploiting animals - and yet still choose to eat meat and maintain the status quo.

Speciesism is also the reason why people throw birthday parties for their dogs and cats and raise funds for tapirs and pandas, but think nothing of paying someone else to deplete our oceans and commit deforestation so that one can eat fish and steak - because the lives of certain species are valued over that of others.

Humans know that in order to prevent pandemics and environmental disasters, we need to stop exploiting and interfering with animals and the natural world, yet our speciesist bias means that we are unwilling to give up the pleasure that comes with eating and confining animals, destroying wildlife habitats and using animals for clothing, entertainment and sport.

The desire of humans to maintain the appearance of being the master species means that we continue to normalise violence and cruelty to animals and trivialise their pain and suffering.

To move forward into a cleaner, healthier, greener and kinder future, we need to ask ourselves some hard questions about our relationship with other species.

For too long, we have relied on the appeal-to-tradition fallacy that humans have always eaten meat as a justification to continue doing so. Just because something has always been done does not make it moral.

We can agree that no amount of normalisation can make slavery, domestic violence or human trafficking moral acts, so we are also capable of making the connection that just because we have always exploited animals, it does not make these acts moral, justifiable, or even essential to human health and survival.

Further, it is true that humans have always eaten meat, but it is also true that pandemics in the past have also been linked to the consumption and exploitation of animals. The 1918 Spanish Flu arose from the farming and consumption of pigs. Rabies in South America was transmitted by vampire bats to cattle that then transmitted it to humans. The Nipah Virus became an outbreak because virus-infected fruit bats transmitted the virus to farmed pigs.

Scientists believe that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has its origins in the hunting of primates in central African forests and Ebola has been associated with hunting in Gabon and the Republic of Congo.

Where there is consumption of meat and destruction of the natural world, there will be disease outbreaks.

We need to question not only animal agriculture and meat consumption but also the frequency and volume of meat consumption. As incomes and standards of living rise in Malaysia, our meat consumption also rises. Between 1981 and 2015, local consumption of beef rose from 23,000 to 250,000 metric tonnes. Between 1996 and 2015, consumption of poultry rose from 666,000 to 1.59 million metric tonnes.

Even if meat consumption was not a moral issue for people who lived two to three generations ago, it is imperative for us to ask ourselves now if it is necessary, appropriate, moral and harmless for us to continue to consume so much resources and inflict so much suffering, pain and death. The more meat we eat, the more intensive and cruel the animal agriculture industry has to become in order to be efficient and profitable.

Technology already exists for us to consume meat that does not cause animal suffering or harm our health or the environment. "Clean meat" grown from harvested stem cells is now reaching the scale of production in which it will soon be as affordable as animal-based meat. Producing meat in laboratories would require less water, land and grains than livestock farming and would significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Plant-based meat alternatives have already been in the Malaysian market for many years, and most of these products have obtained halal certification.

Further, thanks to advances in technology, much of the world including Malaysia has access to a wide variety of fruits, grains and vegetables, which can meet human dietary needs inexpensively.

Considering that we can get all the dietary nutrients and calories we need from non-animal sources, whats stopping us from making the transition?

There is a growing population of vegans and animal rights advocates who hold the strong moral view that there can be no justification for harming animals. But even holding the moderate view that we should kill fewer animals for food and choose products and services that do not harm or exploit them would reduce the number of animals that are killed to satisfy human appetites.

Evolution has equipped all of us humans and non-human animals alike with an instinct to survive, thrive, procreate and avoid pain and misery. This provides us with a scientific foundation to argue that reducing the pain, suffering and misery of others not only humans is the moral, appropriate, rational and prosocial thing to do. If we can live happy, healthy and productive lives without harming others, why wouldnt we?

Aug 29 is observed as the World Day for the End of Speciesism. It is a day for us to reflect on and challenge our long-held beliefs about the superiority of humans and how to relate to and regard non-human species.

SPCA Selangor, which has long been seen as an organisation working to protect and improve the welfare of companion animals such as cats and dogs, has since expanded its work to include advocating for improvements to farm animal welfare and for a plant-based lifestyle and ethics.

We would like to encourage everyone to change how they view and treat other species, take measures to reduce the suffering of other species, reduce the consumption of meat and animal products even if one cannot make the full transition to a vegetarian or vegan diet, support higher welfare standards for farm animals until the system can be reformed or abolished, question traditions and practices that exploit or harm animals, and choose products, services and practices that cause the least harm to others possible.

WONG EE LYNN

Farm Animal Welfare Programme Manager

Society For The Prevention Of Cruelty To Animals, Selangor

Read more:
Advocating kindness for all creatures great and small - The Star Online

At this time last year I didnt know stem cell therapy for animals was a thing. While searching for a job where I could use my biology background and love of animals, I found a posting for a stem cell technician at a local veterinarians office. I got the job! and have found that there are few things as thrilling as having a part in changing a dog who had been in so much pain she could hardly move to become one whos able to trot around and enjoy life again.

Stem cell therapy is a powerful tool in treating degenerative or other diseases as well as injury. Its an effective way to regenerate damaged or diseased tissue using cells from the dogs own body. It was first used in a veterinary context in 2002 for tendon and ligament repair for horses.1 Since severe leg injuries can be detrimental for horses, particularly for those involved in sports of racing and jumping, stem cell therapy was a game changer. The results were remarkable most of the treated horses were able to return to their previous activity.

Eventually stem cell therapy was utilized in treating companion animals, primarily for the same issues of tendon or ligament repair but has largely become focused on arthritis. While not a cure-all, stem cell therapy is a low-risk approach to treating injuries and degenerative diseases, providing our dogs with a better quality of life without dependence on medications.

STEM CELL BASICS

What is a stem cell? Its not quite as simple a question as it sounds. There are different types of stem cells, but the first main characteristic of a stem cell (SC) is that it can become one of a number of different cell types (called differentiation), giving rise to different tissues. Stem cells are also very proliferative, meaning they quickly divide and produce more cells, but at varying rates depending on the type of SC.

There is a difference between embryonic and adult stem cells. Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are responsible for embryonic development. They are pluripotent, which means they can develop into any type of cell in the adult body. And they are vastly proliferative, more so than adult SCs. ESCs do not exist in the organism after birth.

An embryo develops from a single cell into a complex organism composed of multiple tissues. The course of development involves many stages, but in short, a few cells proliferate and eventually develop specialized cells that compose all the various tissues of the body. ESCs in the early embryo proliferate, or divide, to produce more cells very quickly. They are pluripotent, which means they are capable of becoming any cell type in the organism. As development proceeds cells eventually become more specialized and less proliferative. There are many stages or levels as SCs move toward specialization.

Early in development, ESCs differentiate into one of three germ layers, each of which gives rise to certain parts of the fetus. The endoderm (endo = inner) gives rise to many internal organs, including the lungs, pancreas, stomach, and liver. The mesoderm (meso = middle) gives rise to bone, cartilage, tendons, ligaments, muscle, heart, fat, and some nervous tissue. The ectoderm (ecto = outer) gives rise to neurons, outer layers of the skin and hair. As ESCs divide they produce new SCs that are specialized to one of these layers. Those SCs produce more SCs as well as progenitor cells, the precursors to specialized cells that compose distinct tissues.

The mesoderm lineage produces mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) which are the cells used for therapy. The MSCs are considered multipotent (as opposed to pluripotent) because they can give rise to a limited number of tissues. MSCs and SCs from the other two lineages are present in the fully developed organism but are dormant or inactive until they are needed. They are activated by injury or disease at which time they begin proliferating and differentiating.

Non-controversial

Upon hearing what I now do for a living, friends sometimes ask me: Isnt stem cell therapy controversial? In our context, no! The controversy involves the use of embryonic stem cells. There are objections to their use in humans from ethical and religious points of view. Also, from a clinical perspective, ESCs have proven to be difficult to employ properly and in some cases hazardous. Because of their highly proliferative nature they can actually replicate too much. This can lead to mutations in the cells which can result in cancer.

What we use are adult stem cells. There are no ethical concerns because the cells can be extracted from a living organism with minimal risk. For SC therapy in the veterinary context the cells are taken from the same animal who will use them for therapeutic purposes. And because adult stem cells are less hot in terms of proliferation their genome remains much more stable essentially eliminating the concern of developing cancer.

PUTTING STEM CELLS TO THERAPEUTIC WORK

There are plenty of adult SCs in an adult organism. They are typically dormant and become activated in response to tissue damage or disease, which begins a complex cascade of cellular and chemical signals. The local SCs become activated and migrate to the specific area and proliferate to create more stem cells as well as progenitor cells to replace specialized cells (like cartilage or bone) that have been impaired.

Importantly, MSCs can be used to treat tissues to which they do not give rise; their main function in those cases is to activate the SCs in that tissue. SCs also modulate the immune system, decreasing the inflammatory response. The primary function of the stem cells used for therapy is to directly (in the case of tissues of the mesoderm lineage) or indirectly (for endoderm or ectoderm lineages) regenerate healthy tissue to replace what is damaged or diseased.

So, in cases of arthritis or dysplasia where there is damage to bone or cartilage, the MSCs produce and become those cells; in cases of ligament damage they produce ligament cells. In cases of the other two lineages the MSCs stimulate the SCs of that lineage to produce new cells, such as liver cells or skin cells. Since it causes the body to regenerate new, healthy cells, SC therapy is often referred to as regenerative medicine.

To undertake stem cell therapy we must first extract the MSCs, concentrate them, and then get them to the area of injury or disease. The closer the cells can be placed to the specific site of trouble the better. For cases of arthritis the MSCs are injected into the diseased joint; for areas or organs where injection is not possible MSCs are administered intravenously. As the SCs travel through the blood to reach various organs they are available to respond to specific areas of distress in those tissues.

Most dogs who receive SC therapy will need to receive multiple treatments. The time between treatments depends on the individual. Repeat treatments are given anywhere from one to two months to a year or so apart. In my work Ive seen a few cases where the problem has ceased after one treatment. This is not common, but it does happen.

TREATMENT PROCESS

For SC therapy, MSCs are extracted from the body of the animal to be treated. They are present in tissue such as bone, fat, skin, brain, and heart.2 Initially SCs were extracted from bone marrow. However, there is a greater abundance of MSCs in adipose (fat) tissue, and this tissue is less traumatic to harvest, so this is the source used most frequently.

There are a few sources of adipose tissue in a dog. Some vets take fat from the scapular (shoulder) area. Others, including the veterinarian I work for, Dr. Robert Hagler in Lafayette, California, prefers to use fat from the umbilical area. This is a relatively simple procedure, but does require general anesthesia.

After removal, the fat is processed to extract the stem cells from the tissue (thats my job!). The tissue goes through several mechanical and chemical digestion and separation steps. After a few hours the output is the stromal vascular fraction (SVF), which has concentrated mesenchymal SCs as well as other cells and components that support the action of the MSCs. Depending on the veterinarian, the SVF may be extracted on-site, in which case the dog is treated the same day (at the clinic where I work, we do the processing in-house). The majority of vets send the fat off to be processed and the SVF is returned for treatment on the second day following harvest at which time it is administered to the dog.

Usually, there are plenty of cells from the fat harvest for multiple treatments, depending on the condition being treated. The SVF needed for the initial treatment is slightly diluted in sterile saline and divided up to accommodate the number of injections to be made. Platelet-rich plasma (PRP, more on this below) is usually added to the SVF to further support the stem cell response. We usually save a small portion of SVF to be given intravenously. Extra fat containing cells for future treatments is sent off to be processed and the cells cryogenically frozen.

In most cases the dog is sedated for injection. If youve ever had an injection into a joint, you know that they are quite painful and that it is much easier on the dog to be sedated. If MSCs are administered only via IV, sedation is typically not necessary. Once the injections are complete, the sedation is reversed, and the dog can go home once he has fully recovered.

Future treatments are simpler, since the fat harvest and cell extraction has already been completed. In our office the dog comes to the office in the morning and has blood drawn for PRP. The blood is processed to obtain the PRP while thawed SVF goes through steps to wash and activate the MSCs. Once both components are prepared, they are administered as described above.

For joint injections, the first few days following treatment can be more painful than pre-treatment. The time for positive results to be evident varies from dog to dog. The average is a matter of weeks, but in some cases weve seen positive results in a few days, and there are times where it takes a month or two.

PLATELET-RICH PLASMA

Many vets accompany the MSCs with platelet-rich plasma. This substance helps amplify the signals from the injured or damaged area and directs the MSCs to that area. It helps to get the most out of the MSCs that are used. PRP also uses the dogs own tissue in this case, blood, which is drawn on the day of treatment. It is processed using a series of separation steps to concentrate platelets and a number of growth factors present in blood, and then the PRP is activated. It is combined with the SVF and administered with it in the injection.

In our office we sometimes use PRP outside of SC therapy to help promote healing. The most striking example of its efficacy Ive seen was when two dogs had tibial plateau leveling osteotomy (TPLO) surgery for a ruptured ACL on the same day. Both had previous TPLO surgery on the other rear leg. PRP was administered to the surgical site once the procedure was complete. According to the owners and Dr. Hagler, both dogs had shorter recovery times compared to their previous surgeries and were using the surgical legs much sooner.

RISKS

Stem cell therapy is very safe. The MSCs used for therapy are autologous, meaning they come from the same dog who will receive them, so there is no risk of rejection. There are essentially no side effects from the treatment itself. The treatment process is rooted in the biology of the animal utilizing the natural healing properties of his or her own cells.

The most significant risk of the therapy has to do with the general anesthesia required in order to surgically remove some fat from the dog. There is always some risk in surgical procedures requiring anesthesia more so for older or frail dogs. In addition, there is some risk of infection, since injections are often given into joints. To mitigate this risk, injections of MSCs are often accompanied by a small dose of antibiotic.

Rocco's Transformation

Rocco is a 10-year-old black Labrador Retriever. Thirteen months ago he had his first stem cell treatment to address a number of issues including arthritis in both hips and a neurological issue causing weakness in his rear end. The pain from his hips combined with the rear end weakness made it increasingly difficult for him to get around. Roccos owner, Vicki, says that he would squat to urinate and couldnt get back up.

He also had masticatory myositis an autoimmune condition that causes the muscles involved in chewing to become inflamed and very painful. Rocco was unable to open his mouth without terrible pain. To add to that he had neurological problems that affected his head and neck resulting in laryngeal paralysis. He had such a smorgasbord of neurological symptoms it was difficult to give him a definitive diagnosis.

Before he was hindered by his conditions Rocco was an active dog with a lot of pep. He loved his long walks at a local park. He let his family know he was ready for a walk by picking up his leash in his mouth. He caught treats that were tossed to him. And he would jump up onto the couch to hang out with his family. Vicki describes the heartbreak of seeing Rocco so impaired by pain that he wasnt able to pick up his leash or jump up to the couch, and when they arrived at their favorite walking spot Rocco wouldnt get out of the car. Because of the loss of musculature of his head, he looked very different, like his eyes were sunken in. She describes him looking like a skeleton. Rocco was on medications for pain and prednisone for the masticatory myositis but was getting little relief. Vicki was afraid this was the end of Roccos life.

She and Dr. Hagler decided to try stem cell therapy, and the results were amazing. Rocco received injections in both hips, intervertebral injections in his lumbar and sacral spine, and stem cells via IV for his head, jaw, and neck. The day after his treatment he was frisky and happy. He returned to his usual exuberance about his daily walks. And, his masticatory myositis and laryngeal paralysis resolved, and have not been apparent since.

While not necessarily one of the targets of his SC therapy, Rocco also had a long history of digestive issues. Despite years of trying to identify and treat the problem, nothing seemed to help. Rocco had diarrhea about every other week. He hasnt had an episode of diarrhea since his SC treatment. Added to the success for the symptoms that were targeted this was an unexpected and wonderful surprise!

Rocco just came back in for a follow-up treatment, as Vicki had noticed some of the signs of his hip pain and rear end weakness returning. Again, he received injections in his hips and between vertebrae, and stem cells via IV. The next day Vicki described him as super spunky for the walk they had just been on. She describes Roccos experience being like a miracle and is so thankful to have her happy dog back, noting that Roccos improved health has been therapeutic for the whole family.

EXPECTATIONS

As I mentioned, SC therapy has been used most often in the treatment of arthritis, and with significant improvement in pain levels, range of motion, and functional mobility. Our practice has also used it in many cases of hip or elbow dysplasia, with excellent results in very young dogs with severe dysplasia.

One example is Tugboat, a chocolate Lab who was debilitated by elbow dysplasia when he was just four months old. His owner tried everything, including costly surgery, pain meds, therapy, etc.

Searching for other options she decided to try SC therapy. Following treatment, Tugboat is a different dog! He could hardly tolerate walking before, but now walks over an hour a day and plays at the beach. He comes in for repeat treatments every six months or so, when he starts showing signs of pain and decreased mobility, and soon returns to his normal activities.

MSCs are also used to treat damaged tendons and ligaments. SC therapy is helpful for partial tears, but not if the ligament is completely ruptured; there is simply not enough material to bridge a complete tear. At the clinic where I work, we have used SCs to treat degenerative myelopathy with good results. There have been a number of small scale (n=10 or less in most cases) studies that found SC therapy improved the condition of dogs with arthritis, dysplasia, intervertebral disc disease, perianal fistulas, inflammatory bowel disease, and keratoconjunctivitis sicca.3

Some dogs show improvement very early after treatment; others take longer, and the degree of improvement varies. However, says Dr. Hagler, Ive never seen a dog that didnt have some improvement.

Overall, the literature3 concurs that SC therapy is effective, though many studies or reports are anecdotal, based on practitioners data and experience; few clinical trials have yet been completed, though the companies whose technology is used to extract the SCs have studies in the works.

THE FUTURE OF STEM CELL THERAPY

The exciting possibilities for future directions of stem cell therapy mainly concern the source of cells used to treat patients. Currently the dog being treated must be the source of the cells used for treatment otherwise the treatment would be legally considered a drug and must first gain approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Having a stem cell bank would be a great help in the cases of dogs who lack enough fat to harvest or dogs who are too frail to undergo general anesthesia for surgical fat harvesting. Just as dogs can be universal recipients of blood, they can also safely receive stem cells that came from another dog. One study even found that MSCs can be extracted from human adipose tissue and transplanted into dogs.4 (Anyone have some fat youd like to donate?)

Transplantation of MSCs from another animal would be a game changer. There are cases where the dog with banked cells doesnt need them anymore, either because theyve stopped doing therapy or because they are deceased. It would be ideal if the dogs owner could make the banked cells available to other dogs. Currently this is not legal.

Its possible to grow MSCs (but not supporting cells) in a lab to increase their numbers, reducing the need to harvest fat more than once; one company does that now.

Getting Started with Stem Cells

You may be thinking that this sounds like something that may help your dog. Here are the next steps.

The first is to find a veterinarian who offers SC therapy. All veterinarians who provide this therapy work with one of two companies that provide the equipment, reagents, processing, and storage of cells: VetStem Biopharma and MediVet Biologics. The details of how services are offered depend to some degree on the company with which the vets office works.

VetStem has been doing SC therapy for animals for the longest time. VetStem currently cultures the animals MSCs, while MediVet does not, although they are working in that direction. VetStem does all the processing at their own facility.

MediVet provides training, equipment, and reagents to vet hospitals that choose to process cells in-house. Not all hospitals working with MediVet choose to do this, so in those cases, MediVet does the processing. The beauty of doing the processing onsite is that the fat harvest and initial therapy can be done in the same day. If you have to travel a distance to a vet for SC therapy, it certainly isnt ideal to have to make multiple trips within a few days of each other for the initial therapy.

PRP can also be done onsite. VetStem does not incorporate PRP into their SC therapy.

Both companies store SCs for future use and can bank cells even before treatment is needed. If your dog is undergoing anesthesia for another procedure, like a spay or neuter, your veterinarian can harvest fat at that time and ship it to the company, so they can extract and freeze the cells for any future use your dog may need. If you have the foresight (and funds) to do this, it could eliminate the need to put your dog through fat-harvesting surgery later, when he may be less able to tolerate general anesthesia. When I am ready to have my dog neutered I will likely do this.

Depending on where you are located the choice of which company to utilize for the SC processing may be narrowed down for you simply by the vets who offer SC therapy in your area. Check with your veterinarian. You can also check the VetStem and MediVet websites; they can put in you in contact with one of their partner veterinarians near you.

CONSIDERATIONS BEFORE PROCEEDING

There are some cases where SC therapy is contraindicated. Because of the proliferative and immune-modulating effects of SCs, therapy should not be done for dogs who are known to have or suspected of having cancer. Neither should dogs who have an active infection receive therapy.

SC therapy may also not be an option for dogs who are lacking sufficient fat (until there is a stem cell bank for dogs!) or dogs who are too frail to withstand general anesthesia.

Stem cell therapy is not inexpensive; the cost for the initial treatment, including adipose harvest, is in the neighborhood of $2,500. Follow-up treatments can run $500 to $1,000. These numbers will vary from vet to vet. The good news is that many pet insurance plans now cover SC therapy. Even without insurance it is substantially less costly and less invasive than more drastic measures like joint replacement.

SC therapy is not a panacea and getting the greatest benefit requires basic but sometimes overlooked actions. Its important to support the health of the whole dog: Keep his nails trimmed so they dont interfere with walking. Feed a quality diet that supports overall health. Take precautions to prevent infection following surgery. Keep up with follow-up treatments in a timely manner to minimize the amount of pain or dysfunction the dog experiences. Supporting the dogs overall health and providing him with quality care is imperative in getting the most out of treatment.

Joanne Osburn is the stem cell technician at Mt. Diablo Veterinary Medical Center in Lafayette, CA. After working for nine years as a biology tech at a government laboratory, she is delighted to be working in the veterinary field where she can help improve the lives of pets. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area with her husband Paul and super silly dog Guster.

References

1 Fortier LA, Travis AJ. Stem cells in veterinary medicine. Stem Cell Research & Therapy 2011; 2:9.

2 Markoski MM. Advances in the use of stem cells in veterinary medicine: From basic research to clinical practice. Scientifica 2016; 2016: 4516920.

3 Hoffman AM, Dow SW. Concise review: Stem cell trials using companion animal disease models. Stem Cells 2016; 34: 1709-1729.

4 Lee SH, Setyawan EMN, Choi YB, et al. Clinical assessment after human adipose stem cell transplantation into dogs. J Vet Sci 2018; 19(3): 452-461.

Originally posted here:
Canine Stem Cell Therapy - Whole Dog Journal

The two syringes on the left contain a very small amount of antibiotics. The large syringe is used for intravenous (IV) administration of stem cells. It contains approximately a quarter of the total VF fraction (SVF) diluted in sterile saline. The four syringes on the right contain a combination of platelet rich plasma (PRP) and SVF and are injected into the joints and intervertebral spaces.

Little did I know about this time last year that animal stem cell therapy was a thing. Looking for a job that would capitalize on my biological background and love for animals, I found a position for a stem cell technician at a local veterinary office. I got the job! and found that there are few things as exciting as changing a dog that was in so much pain that it could barely move to become one who is able to frolic and that To enjoy life again.

Stem cell therapy is an effective tool for treating degenerative or other diseases as well as injuries. This is an effective way to use cells from the dog's own body to regenerate damaged or diseased tissue. It was first used in the veterinary context in 2002 to repair tendons and ligaments in horses.1 Since severe leg injuries can be harmful to horses, especially those involved in racing and jumping, stem cell therapy was a key factor. The results were remarkable most of the horses treated were able to return to their previous activity.

Eventually, stem cell therapy has been used in the treatment of pets, mostly for the same tendon or ligament repair problems, but has largely focused on arthritis. While stem cell therapy is not a panacea, it is a low risk approach to treating injuries and degenerative diseases that provides our dogs with a better quality of life without being dependent on medication.

STEM CELL BASICS

What is a stem cell? It's not quite as easy a question as it sounds. There are different types of stem cells, but the first main characteristic of a stem cell (SC) is that it can become one of several different cell types (called differentiation), creating different tissues. Stem cells are also very proliferative, which means they divide quickly and produce more cells, but at different rates depending on the type of SC.

There is a difference between embryonic and adult stem cells. Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are responsible for embryonic development. They are pluripotent, which means that they can develop into any type of cell in the adult body. And they are very proliferative, more so than adult SCs. ESCs do not exist in the organism after birth.

An embryo develops from a single cell into a complex organism made up of several tissues. The process of development goes through many stages, but in short, some cells multiply and eventually develop into specialized cells that make up all of the different tissues in the body. ESCs in the early embryo multiply or divide to produce more cells very quickly. They are pluripotent, which means that they can become any type of cell in the organism. Eventually, as development proceeds, the cells become more specialized and less proliferative. There are many levels or levels as PCs move toward specialization.

At the beginning of development, ESCs differentiate into one of three germ layers, from which certain parts of the fetus arise. The endoderm (endo = inner) leads to many internal organs, including the lungs, pancreas, stomach and liver. The mesoderm (meso = middle) leads to bones, cartilage, tendons, ligaments, muscles, heart, fat and some nerve tissue. The ectoderm (ecto = external) leads to neurons, outer layers of skin and hair. When ESCs share, they produce new SCs that specialize in one of these layers. These SCs produce more SCs as well as "progenitor cells", the precursors for specialized cells that make up different tissues.

The Mesoderm line produces mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) that are used for therapy. The MSCs are considered multipotent (as opposed to pluripotent) because they can result in a limited number of tissues. MSCs and SCs from the other two lineages are present in the fully developed organism, but are dormant or inactive until needed. They are activated by injuries or illnesses and begin to multiply and differentiate.

Undisputed

When friends hear what I do for a living now, they sometimes ask me: Isn't stem cell therapy controversial? In our context, no! The controversy concerns the use of embryonic stem cells. There are ethical and religious objections to their use in humans. From a clinical point of view, ESC have proven difficult and in some cases dangerous. Because of their highly proliferative nature, they can actually replicate too much. This can lead to mutations in the cells that can lead to cancer.

What we are using are adult stem cells. There are no ethical concerns as the cells can be extracted from a living organism with minimal risk. For SC therapy in a veterinary context, the cells are taken from the same animal that uses them for therapeutic purposes. And because adult stem cells are less hot in terms of proliferation, their genome stays much more stable, essentially eliminating concern about cancer development.

PUTTING STEM CELLS INTO THERAPEUTIC WORK

There are many adult SCs in an adult organism. They are typically dormant and activated in response to tissue damage or disease, starting a complex cascade of cellular and chemical signals. The local SCs are activated and migrate to the specific area and multiply to produce more stem cells as well as progenitor cells to replace impaired specialized cells (such as cartilage or bone).

Importantly, MSCs can be used to treat tissues to which they do not lead. Their main function in these cases is to activate the SCs in that tissue. SCs also modulate the immune system and decrease the inflammatory response. The main function of the stem cells used for therapy is to regenerate healthy tissue directly (for tissues of the mesoderm line) or indirectly (for endoderm or ectoderm lines) to replace what is damaged or diseased.

In cases of arthritis or dysplasia where the bones or cartilage are damaged, the MSCs produce and become these cells. If the ligament is damaged, they produce ligament cells. In the cases of the other two lines, the MSCs stimulate the SCs on that line to produce new cells such as liver cells or skin cells. As the body regenerates new, healthy cells as a result, SC therapy is often referred to as regenerative medicine.

In order to perform stem cell therapy we must first extract the MSCs, concentrate them, and then bring them to the area of injury or disease. The closer the cells can be placed to the specific problem area, the better. In arthritis, the MSCs are injected into the diseased joint; MSCs are given intravenously for areas or organs where injection is not possible. As the SCs travel through the blood to reach various organs, they are available to respond to specific areas of stress in those tissues.

Most dogs receiving SC therapy will need multiple treatments. The time between treatments depends on the person. Repeated treatments are carried out at intervals of one to two months to a year. In my work I have seen a few cases where the problem has stopped after treatment. This is not common, but it does happen.

TREATMENT PROCESS

For SC therapy, MSCs are extracted from the body of the animal to be treated. They are present in tissues such as bone, fat, skin, brain, and heart.2 First, SCs were extracted from the bone marrow. However, there is a greater abundance of MSCs in adipose tissue and this tissue is less traumatic to harvest, so this is the most common source used.

There are several sources of adipose tissue in a dog. Some veterinarians ingest fat from the shoulder blade area. Others, including the veterinarian I work for, Dr. Robert Hagler of Lafayette, Calif., Prefer to use navel fat. This is a relatively simple procedure, but it requires general anesthesia.

Once removed, the fat is processed to extract the stem cells from the tissue (that's my job!). The tissue goes through several mechanical and chemical digestion and separation steps. After a few hours, the exit is the stromal vascular fraction (SVF), which has concentrated mesenchymal SCs as well as other cells and components that aid the MSCs' action. Depending on the veterinarian, the SVF can be extracted on site. In this case, the dog will be treated on the same day (in the clinic where I work, the processing is done internally). The majority of vets send the fat off for processing and the SVF is sent back for treatment on the second day after harvest. At this point it is given to the dog.

Usually there are many cells from the fatty tissue for multiple treatments, depending on the condition being treated. The SVF required for initial treatment is slightly diluted in sterile saline and divided to account for the number of injections to be performed. Platelet rich plasma (PRP, more on this below) is usually added to the SVF to further support the stem cell response. We usually save a small portion of SVF to be given intravenously. Extra fat, containing cells for future treatments, is sent for processing and the cells are cryogenically frozen.

In most cases, the dog will be sedated for injection. If you've ever had an injection in a joint you know that these are very painful and that it is much easier for the dog to be sedated. If MSCs are administered via IV only, sedation is usually not required. Once the injections are complete, the sedation will reverse and the dog can go home after a full recovery.

Future treatments are easier because fat and cell extraction is already complete. In our office, the dog comes to the office in the morning and has taken blood for PRP. The blood is processed to obtain the PRP, while thawed SVF goes through steps to wash and activate the MSCs. Once both components are made, they are administered as described above.

With joint injections, the first few days after treatment can be more painful than before treatment. The time it takes to see positive results varies from dog to dog. The average is a matter of weeks, but in some cases we've had positive results within a few days and sometimes it takes a month or two.

PLATELET PLASMA

Many veterinarians accompany the MSCs with platelet-rich plasma. This substance amplifies the signals from the injured or damaged area and directs the MSCs to that area. It helps to get the most out of the MSCs in use. PRP also uses the dog's tissue in this case, blood drawn on the day of treatment. It is processed using a series of separation steps to concentrate platelets and a number of growth factors present in the blood, and then the PRP is activated. It is combined with the SVF and administered with it when injected.

In our office, we sometimes use PRP outside of SC therapy to promote healing. The most striking example of effectiveness I've seen was when two dogs had TPLO (Tibia Plateau Leveling Osteotomy) surgery for a broken ACL on the same day. Both had previously had TPLO surgery on the other hind leg. Upon completion of the procedure, PRP was administered to the surgical site. According to the owners and Dr. Hagler, both dogs had shorter recovery times compared to their previous surgeries and used the surgical legs much earlier.

RISKS

Stem cell therapy is very safe. The MSCs used for therapy are autologous, meaning they come from the same dog who will receive them, so there is no risk of rejection. There are essentially no side effects from the treatment itself. The treatment process is rooted in the animal's biology and uses the natural healing powers of its own cells.

The greatest risk with therapy is general anesthesia, which is required to surgically remove some fat from the dog. There is always some risk involved in surgical procedures that require anesthesia, especially in older or frail dogs. In addition, there is some risk of infection as injections are often given into joints. To reduce this risk, injections of MSC are often accompanied by a small dose of antibiotic.

Rocco's transformation

Ten year old Rocco goes for a walk two days after his second stem cell treatment. He has seen great benefits from stem cell therapy, including less pain, more energy, improvements in his muscles, and a reduction in this drug.

Rocco is a 10 year old black Labrador Retriever. He had his first stem cell treatment thirteen months ago, during which he treated a number of problems including arthritis in both hips and a neurological problem that resulted in weakness in his rear end. The pain from his hips combined with the weakness of the rear end made it increasingly difficult for him to move. Rocco's owner Vicki says he would crouch to urinate and would not be able to get up.

He also had chewing myositis an autoimmune disease that causes the muscles involved in chewing to become inflamed and very painful. Rocco couldn't open his mouth without terrible pain. In addition, he had neurological problems affecting his head and neck that resulted in laryngeal paralysis. He had so many neurological symptoms that it was difficult to make a definitive diagnosis.

Before his conditions hindered him, Rocco was an active dog with a lot of vigor. He loved his long walks in a local park. He let his family know he was ready for a walk by putting his leash in his mouth. He caught treats that were thrown at him. And he jumped on the couch to hang out with his family. Vicki describes the heartache of seeing Rocco so painful that he couldn't pick up his leash or jump to the couch, and when they got to their favorite spot, Rocco didn't get out of the car. With the loss of the muscles in his head, he looked very different, as if his eyes were sunken. She describes him like a skeleton. Rocco was given medication for pain and prednisone for myositis, but got little relief. Vicki was afraid that this would be the end of Rocco's life.

You and Dr. Hagler decided to try stem cell therapy and the results were amazing. Rocco received injections in both hips, intervertebral injections in his lumbar and sacral spine, and stem cells via IV for the head, jaw, and neck. The day after his treatment, he was cheerful and happy. He returned to his usual exuberance about his daily walks. And his kaumyositis and larynx paralysis resolved and have not been recognizable since then.

While Rocco wasn't exactly a target of his SC therapy, he also had a long history of digestive problems. Despite years of trying to identify and treat the problem, nothing seemed to be helping. Rocco had diarrhea about every other week. He has not had an episode of diarrhea since his SC treatment. In addition to the success of the targeted symptoms, this was an unexpected and wonderful surprise!

Rocco was just returning for follow-up treatment when Vicki noticed that some signs of his hip pain and weakness at the rear end were returning. Again he received injections in his hips and between the vertebrae and stem cells over IV. The next day, Vicki described him as "super spunky" for the walk they had just been on. She describes Rocco's experience as "like a miracle" and is so grateful to have her lucky dog back. She notes that Rocco's improved health has been therapeutic for the whole family.

EXPECTATIONS

As mentioned earlier, SC therapy has been the most widely used in the treatment of arthritis and has resulted in significant improvements in pain levels, range of motion and functional mobility. Our practice has also used it in many cases of hip or elbow dysplasia, with excellent results in very young dogs with severe dysplasia.

One example is Tugboat, a chocolate laboratory that was weakened by elbow dysplasia when it was only four months old. Its owner tried everything including costly surgery, pain medication, therapy, etc.

In search of other options, she decided on SC therapy. After treatment, Tugboat is a different dog! He used to find it hard to stand walking, but now he walks for over an hour a day and plays on the beach. He comes in for repeat treatments about every six months if he shows signs of pain and reduced mobility and soon returns to normal activities.

MSCs are also used to treat damaged tendons and ligaments. SC therapy is helpful for partial tears, but not when the ligament is completely torn. There just isn't enough material to bridge a full crack. In the clinic where I work, we have used SCs to treat degenerative myelopathy with good results. There have been a number of small studies (n = 10 or less in most cases) that found that SC therapy improved the condition of dogs with arthritis, dysplasia, disc disease, perianal fistulas, inflammatory bowel disease, and keratoconjunctivitis sicca. 3

Some dogs show improvement very early after treatment; others take longer and the degree of improvement varies. Dr. However, Hagler says, "I've never seen a dog that hasn't improved."

Overall, the literature3 agrees that SC therapy is effective, although many studies or reports based on practitioners' data and experiences are anecdotal. Few clinical studies have been completed, although the companies whose technology will be used to extract the SCs have studies in the works.

THE FUTURE OF STEM CELL THERAPY

The exciting opportunities for future directions in stem cell therapy mainly concern the source of cells used to treat patients. Currently, the dog being treated must be the source of the cells used for treatment otherwise the treatment would be legally considered a drug and must first be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

A stem cell bank would be of great help in dogs lacking enough fat to harvest or in dogs too frail to undergo general anesthesia for surgical fat removal. Just as dogs can be universal blood recipients, they can also safely receive stem cells obtained from another dog. One study even found that MSCs can be extracted from human adipose tissue and transplanted into dogs.4 (Does anyone have any fat you'd like to donate?)

Transplanting MSCs from another animal would be a game changer. There are cases when the dog with bank cells no longer needs them, either because they stopped therapy or because they passed away. It would be ideal if the dog's owner could make the bank cells available to other dogs. This is not currently legal.

It is possible to grow MSCs (but not support cells) in a laboratory to increase their numbers and reduce the need to harvest fat more than once. A company is doing that now.

Getting started with stem cells

You may think this sounds like something that could help your dog. Here are the next steps.

The first is to find a veterinarian who offers SC therapy. All veterinarians offering this therapy work with one of two companies that provide the equipment, reagents, processing and storage of cells: VetStem Biopharma and MediVet Biologics. The details of the service offered depend to some extent on the company with which the veterinarian's office works.

VetStem has been providing SC therapy for animals for a long time. VetStem is currently cultivating the MSCs of the beast, but MediVet is not, although they are working in that direction. VetStem does all the processing in its own facility.

MediVet offers training, equipment and reagents for veterinary clinics that process cells internally. Not all hospitals that work with MediVet choose it. In these cases MediVet takes over the processing. The nice thing about the processing on site is that the fat and the initial therapy can be carried out on the same day. If you have to travel a distance to a veterinarian for SC therapy, it is certainly not ideal to make several trips from one another within a few days for initial therapy.

PRP can also be carried out on site. VetStem does not include PRP in its SC therapy.

Both companies save SCs for future use and can bank cells before treatment is required. If your dog is anesthetized for some other procedure such as a spay or neuter, your veterinarian may harvest fat at this point and send it to the company so they can extract and freeze the cells your dog may need for future use. If you have the forethought (and the money) to do this, it could eliminate the need to have your dog undergo fat loss surgery later when they may be less able to tolerate general anesthesia. When I'm ready to have my dog neutered, I probably will.

Depending on where you are, the choice of company to use for SC processing can be easily narrowed down for you by the veterinarians offering SC therapy in your area. Ask your veterinarian. You can also check the VetStem and MediVet websites. They can put you in touch with one of their partner veterinarians in your area.

PRE-PROCEDURE CONSIDERATIONS

In some cases, SC therapy is contraindicated. Because of the proliferative and immunomodulatory effects of SCs, therapy should not be given in dogs known or suspected of having cancer. Dogs with an active infection should also not receive therapy.

SC therapy may also not be an option for dogs that are lacking enough fat (until there is a stem cell bank for dogs!) Or dogs that are too frail to withstand general anesthesia.

Stem cell therapy isn't cheap; The cost of initial treatment, including harvesting fat, is near $ 2,500. Follow-up treatments can cost anywhere from $ 500 to $ 1,000. These numbers vary from vet to vet. The good news is that many pet insurance policies now cover SC therapy. Even without insurance, it's much cheaper and less invasive than more drastic measures like joint replacements.

SC therapy is not a panacea and to achieve the greatest benefit requires basic, but sometimes overlooked, measures. It is important to support the health of the entire dog: keep its nails trimmed so that they do not interfere with walking. Feed them a good quality diet that supports overall health. Take precautions to prevent infection after surgery. Keep up to date with follow-up treatments in a timely manner to minimize the dog's pain or dysfunction. Supporting the general health of the dog and providing quality care are essential to getting the most out of treatment.

Joanne Osburn is a stem cell technician at Mt. Diablo Veterinary Medical Center in Lafayette, CA. After spending nine years as a biology technician in a government laboratory, she is excited to work in the veterinary field where she can help improve the lives of pets. She lives in San Francisco Bay with her husband Paul and their super stupid dog Guster.

References

1 Fortier LA, Travis AJ. "Stem cells in veterinary medicine." Stem Cell Research & Therapy 2011; 2: 9.

2 Markoski MM. "Advances in the Use of Stem Cells in Veterinary Medicine: From Basic Research to Clinical Practice." Scientifica 2016; 2016: 4516920.

3 Hoffman AM, Dow SW. "Brief overview: Stem cell experiments with models for pets." Stem cells 2016; 34: 1709- 1729.

4 Lee SH, Setyawan EMN, Choi YB et al. "Clinical Evaluation After Human Fat Stem Cell Transplantation in Dogs." J Vet Sci 2018; 19 (3): 452- 461.

Original post:
Stem cell remedy in dogs | Paw Dog Lovers

Persistence Market Research (PMR) has published a new research report on canine stem cell therapy. The report has been titled, Canine Stem Cell Therapy Market: Global Industry Analysis 2016 and Forecast 20172026.Veterinary research has been used in regenerative and adult stem cell therapy andhas gained significant traction over the last decade.

Canine stem cell therapy products are identified to have gained prominence over the past five years, and according to the aforementioned research report, the market for canine stem cell therapy will expand at a moderate pace over the next few years.

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Company Profiles

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Though all animal stem cells are not approved by FDA, veterinary stem-cell manufacturers and university researchers have been adopting various strategies in order to meet regulatory approvals, and streamline and expedite the review-and-approval process. The vendors in the market are incessantly concentrating on research and development to come up with advanced therapy, in addition to acquiring patents.

In September 2017, VetStem Biopharma, Inc. received European patent granted to the University of Pittsburgh and VetStem received full license of the patent then. This patent will eventually provide the coverage for the ongoing commercial and product development programs of VetStem and might be also available for licensing to other companies who are rather interested in this field.

The other companies operating in the global market for canine stem cell therapy are VETherapy Corporation, Aratana Therapeutics, Inc., Regeneus Ltd, Magellan Stem Cells, Animal Cell Therapies, Inc., and Medrego, among others.

According to the Persistence Market Research report, the globalcanine stem cell therapy marketis expected to witness a CAGR of 4.2% during the forecast period 2017-2026. In 2017, the market was valued at US$ 151.4 Mn and is expected to rise to a valuation of US$ 218.2 Mn by the end of 2026.

Burgeoning Prevalence of Chronic Diseases in Dogs to Benefit Market

Adipose Stem Cells (ASCs) are the most prevalent and in-demand adult stem cells owing to their safety profile, ease of harvest, and use and the ability to distinguish into multiple cell lineages. Most early clinical research is focused on adipose stem cells to treat various chronic diseases such as arthritis, tendonitis, lameness, and atopic dermatitis in dogs.

A large area of focus in veterinary medicine is treatment of osteoarthritis in dogs, which becomes more prevalent with age. Globally, more than 20% dogs are suffering from arthritis, which is a common form of canine joint and musculoskeletal disease. Out of those 20%, merely 5% seem to receive the treatment.

However, elbow dysplasia in canine registered a prevalence rate of 64%, converting it into an alarming disease condition to be treated on priority. Thereby, with the growing chronic disorders in canine, the demand for stem cell therapy is increasing at a significant pace.

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Expensive Nature of Therapy to Obstruct Growth Trajectory

Expensive nature and limited access to canine stem cell therapy has demonstrated to be a chief hindrance forestalling its widespread adoption. The average tier II and tier III veterinary hospitals lack the facilities and expertise to perform stem cell procedures, which necessitates the referral to a specialty vet hospital with expertise veterinarians.

A trained veterinary physician charges high treatment cost associated with stem cell therapy for dogs. Generally, dog owners have pet insurance that typically covers maximum cost associated with steam cell therapy to treat the initial injury but for the succeeding measures in case of retreatment, the costs are not covered under the pet insurance. The stem cell therapy is thus cost-prohibitive for a large number of pet owners, which highlights a major restraint to the market growth. Stem cell therapy is still in its developmental stage and a positive growth outcome for the market cannot be confirmed yet.

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To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.

Our client success stories feature a range of clients from Fortune 500 companies to fast-growing startups. PMRs collaborative environment is committed to building industry-specific solutions by transforming data from multiple streams into a strategic asset.

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Positive Disruption In The Demand For To Take The Canine Stem Cell Therapy Market To US$ 218.2 Mn In 2026 - Scientect

Muscle loss

When we reach the age of 50 or 60 our muscles start losing grip on our bones and start shredding. And this process is known as Sarcopenia. A study on mice at the University of Michigan shows that these kinds of muscle losses can be prevented and we may also get to know the reason why it occurs.

During the course of aging the progressive loss of muscle mass is called Sarcopenia. And this kind of muscle loss may be a reason for various diseases or age-related problems such as Osteoarthritis, cardiovascular disease, and cancer too. This disease can also affect the overall functioning of the body.

According to Carlos Aguilar U-M assistant professor at Biomedical Engineering. This research was focused mainly on the functioning of the stem cell. The researcher took two sets of mice a young and an old one to get different stages of muscle injury.

Research mainly focused on the use of bioinformatics analysis of the packaging of stem cells. The focus was on Chromatin of DNA which is present in the nucleus of stem cells. They observed differences in the ways of protein binding when there is no access to Chromatin. The researchers found out that how one transcription factor could block the protein binding ability of the other.

Scientists found out that if they will silence the activity of that transcription factor then they would achieve the unachievable, they could restore the ability of cells to repair the old cells and they think this would restore your youth.

Scientists believe that by subsiding the activity of that transcription factor they are able to restore the ability of older cells to rebuild and restore their older forms. As the chromatin changes every time you age, scientists are working to repair that genome to work in a way in which it could extend our lifespan.

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A Study on Mice reveals that Humans can Attain their Youth Again. Scientists of University of Michigan is ... - Gizmo Posts 24

When Ralph Fisher,a Texas cattle rancher, set eyes on one of the worlds first cloned calves in August 1999, he didnt care what the scientists said: He knew it was his old Brahman bull, Chance, born again. About a year earlier, veterinarians at Texas A&M extracted DNA from one of Chances moles and used the sample to create a genetic double. Chance didnt live to meet his second self, but when the calf was born, Fisher christened him Second Chance, convinced he was the same animal.

Scientists cautioned Fisher that clones are more like twins than carbon copies: The two may act or even look different from one another. But as far as Fisher was concerned, Second Chance was Chance. Not only did they look identical from a certain distance, they behaved the same way as well. They ate with the same odd mannerisms; laid in the same spot in the yard. But in 2003, Second Chance attacked Fisher and tried to gore him with his horns. About 18 months later, the bull tossed Fisher into the air like an inconvenience and rammed him into the fence. Despite 80 stitches and a torn scrotum, Fisher resisted the idea that Second Chance was unlike his tame namesake,telling the radio program This American Life that I forgive him, you know?

In the two decades since Second Chance marked a genetic engineering milestone, cattle have secured a place on the front lines of biotechnology research. Today, scientists around the world are using cutting-edge technologies, fromsubcutaneous biosensorstospecialized food supplements, in an effort to improve safety and efficiency within the$385 billion global cattle meat industry. Beyond boosting profits, their efforts are driven by an imminent climate crisis, in which cattle play a significant role, and growing concern for livestock welfare among consumers.

Gene editing stands out as the most revolutionary of these technologies. Although gene-edited cattle have yet to be granted approval for human consumption, researchers say tools like Crispr-Cas9 could let them improve on conventional breeding practices and create cows that are healthier, meatier, and less detrimental to the environment. Cows are also beinggiven genesfrom the human immune system to create antibodies in the fight against Covid-19. (The genes of non-bovine livestock such as pigs and goats, meanwhile, have been hacked togrow transplantable human organsandproduce cancer drugs in their milk.)

But some experts worry biotech cattle may never make it out of the barn. For one thing, theres the optics issue: Gene editing tends to grab headlines for its role in controversial research and biotech blunders. Crispr-Cas9 is often celebrated for its potential to alter the blueprint of life, but that enormous promise can become a liability in the hands of rogue and unscrupulous researchers, tempting regulatory agencies to toughen restrictions on the technologys use. And its unclear how eager the public will be to buy beef from gene-edited animals. So the question isnt just if the technology will work in developing supercharged cattle, but whether consumers and regulators will support it.

Cattle are catalysts for climate change. Livestockaccount for an estimated 14.5 percent of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, of which cattle are responsible for about two thirds, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). One simple way to address the issue is to eat less meat. But meat consumption is expected to increasealong with global population and average income. A 2012reportby the FAO projected that meat production will increase by 76 percent by 2050, as beef consumption increases by 1.2 percent annually. And the United States isprojected to set a recordfor beef production in 2021, according to the Department of Agriculture.

For Alison Van Eenennaam, an animal geneticist at the University of California, Davis, part of the answer is creating more efficient cattle that rely on fewer resources. According to Van Eenennaam, the number of dairy cows in the United Statesdecreasedfrom around 25 million in the 1940s to around 9 million in 2007, while milk production has increased by nearly 60 percent. Van Eenennaam credits this boost in productivity to conventional selective breeding.

You dont need to be a rocket scientist or even a mathematician to figure out that the environmental footprint or the greenhouse gases associated with a glass of milk today is about one-third of that associated with a glass of milk in the 1940s, she says. Anything you can do to accelerate the rate of conventional breeding is going to reduce the environmental footprint of a glass of milk or a pound of meat.

Modern gene-editing tools may fuel that acceleration. By making precise cuts to DNA, geneticists insert or remove naturally occurring genes associated with specific traits. Some experts insist that gene editing has the potential to spark a new food revolution.

Jon Oatley, a reproductive biologist at Washington State University, wants to use Crispr-Cas9 to fine tune the genetic code of rugged, disease-resistant, and heat-tolerant bulls that have been bred to thrive on the open range. By disabling a gene called NANOS2, he says he aims to eliminate the capacity for a bull to make his own sperm, turning the recipient into a surrogate for sperm-producing stem cells from more productive prized stock. These surrogate sires, equipped with sperm from prize bulls, would then be released into range herds that are often genetically isolated and difficult to access, and the premium genes would then be transmitted to their offspring.

Furthermore, surrogate sires would enable ranchers to introduce desired traits without having to wrangle their herd into one place for artificial insemination, says Oatley. He envisions the gene-edited bulls serving herds in tropical regions like Brazil, the worldslargestbeef exporter and home to around 200 million of the approximately 1.5 billion head of cattle on Earth.

Brazils herds are dominated by Nelore, a hardy breed that lacks the carcass and meat quality of breeds like Angus but can withstand high heat and humidity. Put an Angus bull on a tropical pasture and hes probably going to last maybe a month before he succumbs to the environment, says Oatley, while a Nelore bull carrying Angus sperm would have no problem with the climate.

The goal, according to Oatley, is to introduce genes from beefier bulls into these less efficient herds, increasing their productivity and decreasing their overall impact on the environment. We have shrinking resources, he says, and need new, innovative strategies for making those limited resources last.

Oatley has demonstrated his technique in mice but faces challenges with livestock. For starters, disabling NANOS2 does not definitively prevent the surrogate bull from producing some of its own sperm. And while Oatley has shown he can transplant sperm-producing cells into surrogate livestock, researchers have not yet published evidence showing that the surrogatesproduceenough quality sperm to support natural fertilization. How many cells will you need to make this bull actually fertile? asks Ina Dobrinski, a reproductive biologist at the University of Calgary who helped pioneer germ cell transplantation in large animals.

But Oatleys greatest challenge may be one shared with others in the bioengineered cattle industry: overcoming regulatory restrictions and societal suspicion. Surrogate sires would be classified as gene-edited animals by the Food and Drug Administration, meaning theyd face a rigorous approval process before their offspring could be sold for human consumption. But Oatley maintains that if his method is successful, the sperm itself would not be gene-edited, nor would the resulting offspring. The only gene-edited specimens would be the surrogate sires, which act like vessels in which the elite sperm travel.

Even so, says Dobrinski, Thats a very detailed difference and Im not sure how that will work with regulatory and consumer acceptance.

In fact, American attitudes towards gene editing have been generally positive when the modification is in the interest of animal welfare. Many dairy farmers prefer hornless cows horns can inflict damage when wielded by 1,500-pound animals so they often burn them off in apainful processusing corrosive chemicals and scalding irons. Ina study published last yearin the journal PLOS One, researchers found that most Americans are willing to consume food products from cows genetically modified to be hornless.

Still, experts say several high-profile gene-editing failures in livestock andhumansin recent years may lead consumers to consider new biotechnologies to be dangerous and unwieldy.

In 2014, a Minnesota startup called Recombinetics, a company with which Van Eenennaams lab has collaborated, created a pair of cross-bred Holstein bulls using the gene-editing tool TALENs, a precursor to Crispr-Cas9, making cuts to the bovine DNA and altering the genes to prevent the bulls from growing horns. Holstein cattle, which almost always carry horned genes, are highly productive dairy cows, so using conventional breeding to introduce hornless genes from less productive breeds can compromise the Holsteins productivity. Gene editing offered a chance to introduce only the genes Recombinetics wanted. Their hope was to use this experiment to prove that milk from the bulls female progeny was nutritionally equivalent to milk from non-edited stock. Such results could inform future efforts to make Holsteins hornless but no less productive.

The experiment seemed to work. In 2015, Buri and Spotigy were born. Over the next few years, the breakthrough received widespread media coverage, and when Buris hornless descendant graced thecover of Wired magazine in April 2019, it did so as the ostensible face of the livestock industrys future.

But early last year, a bioinformatician at the FDA ran a test on Buris genome and discovered an unexpected sliver of genetic code that didnt belong. Traces of bacterial DNA called a plasmid, which Recombinetics used to edit the bulls genome, had stayed behind in the editing process, carrying genes linked to antibiotic resistance in bacteria. After the agency publishedits findings, the media reaction was swift and fierce: FDA finds a surprise in gene-edited cattle: antibiotic-resistant, non-bovine DNA,readone headline. Part cow, part bacterium?readanother.

Recombinetics has since insisted that the leftover plasmid DNA was likely harmless and stressed that this sort of genetic slipup is not uncommon.

Is there any risk with the plasmid? I would say theres none, says Tad Sonstegard, president and CEO of Acceligen, a Recombinetics subsidiary. We eat plasmids all the time, and were filled with microorganisms in our body that have plasmids. In hindsight, Sonstegard says his teams only mistake was not properly screening for the plasmid to begin with.

While the presence of antibiotic-resistant plasmid genes in beef probably does not pose a direct threat to consumers, according to Jennifer Kuzma, a professor of science and technology policy and co-director of the Genetic Engineering and Society Center at North Carolina State University, it does raise the possible risk of introducing antibiotic-resistant genes into the microflora of peoples digestive systems. Although unlikely, organisms in the gut could integrate those genes into their own DNA and, as a result, proliferate antibiotic resistance, making it more difficult to fight off bacterial diseases.

The lesson that I think is learned there is that science is never 100 percent certain, and that when youre doing a risk assessment, having some humility in your technology product is important, because you never know what youre going to discover further down the road, she says. In the case of Recombinetics. I dont think there was any ill intent on the part of the researchers, but sometimes being very optimistic about your technology and enthusiastic about it causes you to have blinders on when it comes to risk assessment.

The FDA eventually clarified its results, insisting that the study was meant only to publicize the presence of the plasmid, not to suggest the bacterial DNA was necessarily dangerous. Nonetheless, the damage was done. As a result of the blunder,a plan was quashedforRecombinetics to raise an experimental herd in Brazil.

Backlash to the FDA study exposed a fundamental disagreement between the agency and livestock biotechnologists. Scientists like Van Eenennaam, who in 2017 received a $500,000 grant from the Department of Agriculture to study Buris progeny, disagree with the FDAs strict regulatory approach to gene-edited animals. Typical GMOs aretransgenic, meaning they have genes from multiple different species, but modern gene-editing techniques allow scientists to stay roughly within the confines of conventional breeding, adding and removing traits that naturally occur within the species.

That said, gene editing is not yet free from errors and sometimes intended changes result in unintended alterations, notes Heather Lombardi, division director of animal bioengineering and cellular therapies at the FDAs Center for Veterinary Medicine. For that reason, the FDA remains cautious.

Theres a lot out there that I think is still unknown in terms of unintended consequences associated with using genome-editing technology, says Lombardi. Were just trying to get an understanding of what the potential impact is, if any, on safety.

Bhanu Telugu, an animal scientist at the University of Maryland and president and chief science officer at the agriculture technology startup RenOVAte Biosciences, worries that biotech companies willmigrate their experimentsto countries with looser regulatory environments. Perhaps more pressingly, he says strict regulation requiring long and expensive approval processes may incentivize these companies to work only on traits that are most profitable, rather than those that may have the greatest benefit for livestock and society, such as animal well-being and the environment.

What company would be willing to spend $20 million on potentially alleviating heat stress at this point? he asks.

On a windywinter afternoon, Raluca Mateescu leaned against a fence post at the University of Floridas Beef Teaching Unit while a Brahman heifer sniffed inquisitively at the air and reached out its tongue in search of unseen food. Since 2017, Mateescu, an animal geneticist at the university, has been part of a team studying heat and humidity tolerance in breeds like Brahman and Brangus (a mix between Brahman and Angus cattle). Her aim is to identify the genetic markers that contribute to a breeds climate resilience, markers that might lead to more precise breeding and gene-editing practices.

In the South, Mateescu says, heat and humidity are a major problem. That poses a stress to the animals because theyre selected for intense production to produce milk or grow fast and produce a lot of muscle and fat.

Like Nelore cattle in South America, Brahman are well-suited for tropical and subtropical climates, but their high tolerance for heat and humidity comes at the cost of lower meat quality than other breeds. Mateescu and her team have examined skin biopsies and found that relatively large sweat glands allow Brahman to better regulate their internal body temperature. With funding from the USDAs National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the researchers now plan to identify specific genetic markers that correlate with tolerance to tropical conditions.

If were selecting for animals that produce more without having a way to cool off, were going to run into trouble, she says.

There are other avenues in biotechnology beyond gene editing that may help reduce the cattle industrys footprint. Although still early in their development,lab-cultured meatsmay someday undermine todays beef producers by offering consumers an affordable alternative to the conventionally grown product, without the animal welfare and environmental concerns that arise from eating beef harvested from a carcass.

Other biotech techniques hope to improve the beef industry without displacing it. In Switzerland, scientists at a startup called Mootral areexperimenting with a garlic-based food supplementdesigned to alter the bovine digestive makeup to reduce the amount of methane they emit. Studies have shown the product to reduce methane emissions by about 20 percent in meat cattle, according to The New York Times.

In order to adhere to the Paris climate agreement, Mootrals owner, Thomas Hafner, believes demand will grow as governments require methane reductions from their livestock producers. We are working from the assumption that down the line every cow will be regulated to be on a methane reducer, he told The New York Times.

Meanwhile, a farm science research institute in New Zealand, AgResearch, hopes to target methane production at its source by eliminating methanogens, the microbes thought to be responsible for producing the greenhouse gas in ruminants. The AgResearch team isattempting to developa vaccine to alter the cattle guts microbial composition, according to the BBC.

Genomic testing may also allow cattle producers to see what genes calves carry before theyre born, according to Mateescu, enabling producers to make smarter breeding decisions and select for the most desirable traits, whether it be heat tolerance, disease resistance, or carcass weight.

Despite all these efforts, questions remain as to whether biotech can ever dramatically reduce the industrys emissions or afford humane treatment to captive animals in resource-intensive operations. To many of the industrys critics, including environmental and animal rights activists, the very nature of the practice of rearing livestock for human consumption erodes the noble goal of sustainable food production. Rather than revamp the industry, these critics suggest alternatives such as meat-free diets to fulfill our need for protein. Indeed,data suggestsmany young consumers are already incorporating plant-based meats into their meals.

Ultimately, though, climate change may be the most pressing issue facing the cattle industry, according to Telugu of the University of Maryland, which received a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to improve productivity and adaptability in African cattle. We cannot breed our way out of this, he says.

Dyllan Furness is a Florida-based science and technology journalist. His work has appeared in Quartz, OneZero, and PBS, among other outlets. Follow him on Twitter @dyllonline

This article was originally published at Undark and has been republished here with permission. Follow Undark on Twitter @undarkmag

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CRISPR cows could boost sustainable meat production, but regulations and wary consumers stand in the way - Genetic Literacy Project

Stem cells are characterized as forerunner cells that have the ability to self-restore and to generate multiple cell types. They have two interesting properties that empower them to do this:

First and foremost, they can divide again and again to create new cells. Also, as they divide, they can change into different types of cells that make up the body.

There are three different types of stem cells. One of them is the embryonic stem cells which supply new cells for an embryo as it grows and develops into a baby. They are pluripotent, which implies that they can change into any cell in the body.

Another one is called adult stem cells. They supply new cells as an organism grows to replace damaged cells. They are multipotent, which implies they can just change into certain cells in the body, for instance:

Epithelial stem cells can only replace the various kinds of cells in our skin and hair.

The last one is called the induced pluripotent stem cells, or IPS cells. They are cultured in the lab by taking normal adult cells, like skin or blood cells, and redesigning them to become stem cells. The fact that they are pluripotent means they can also change into any cell type.

Research into the use of stem cells to repair bones, ligaments, tendons, spinal cord injuries and in the treatment of kidney and liver disease, cardiomyopathies, and certain inflammatory diseases of the skin and gut is ongoing, However, stem cell therapy has been commonly used in the treatment of osteoarthritis and hip dysplasia in pets such as dogs and cats.

The procedure is the same in most clinics that perform stem cell therapy for pets. Generally, once you visit the veterinary doctor, they have to review the condition of your pet (including prognosis) with stem cell therapy. Your pet would be intubated and properly observed and monitored during the procedure.

The stem cell therapy treatment should average three to four hours. An intravenous catheter would be used to administer pet anesthesia and up to two tablespoons of fat are removed from the shoulder or abdomen of the pet. The stem cells are separated from the fat within 48 hours of extraction, and it is ready for infusion into the affected area. Asides from transforming into any cell type, stem cells block the formation of inflammatory molecules and scar tissue, and they signal the body to produce pain-reducing substances.

Improvement is usually noticed within 14 days of treatment. The risk of rejection is eliminated because these pets receive their own cells.

Although it is better for your pets to receive treatment within 60 days of injury, stem cell therapy can also be helpful in improving long term injuries.

There are lots of affordable pet clinics that perform stem cell therapy for pets. If your dog is in need of a stem cell therapy or you are aware of dogs in your neighborhood in need of one, all you need to do is to type the words, dog stem cell therapy near me and include your location using any of your favorite search engines.

Websites, clinic names, and contact details should pop up and from there you can easily pick the one that appeals most to you.

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What are stem cells and why are they important for pets ...

ABCGallant Stem Cells on 'Shark Tank'.

Tonight, Gallant Stem Cell Therapy For Dogs will be featured on an all-new episode of Shark Tank.

The company was founded by Aaron Hirschhorn, and is the first and only non-invasive animal stem cell collection method available today.

Interested in learning more about Gallant Stem Cell Bank? Read on.

Gallant on Shark Tank.

Hirschhorn is the founder and former CEO of DogVacay. The company was launched as an app in 2013 and merged with Rover.com in 2017. It eventually went on to become a $1 billion pet services marketplace.

According to Business Wire, Gallants research team is developing the first-of-its-kind biotechnologies and treatment methods. It is committed to spending millions on R&D pursuing both autologous therapies, which use a dogs own stem cells, and allogenic therapies, which any dog can use, at a fraction of the cost of currently available therapies.

The Gallant team consists of veterinarians, scientists, and entrepreneurs who hold themselves and their lab to the absolute highest standard. Today, they are working with VDA as part of the Veterinary Innovation Program to develop therapies.

A few years ago, Aaron suffered a major back injury. He was forced to undergo stem cell treatment, which worked well. The News Crunch writes, Aaron, being an ardent dog lover wondered why this cutting-edge medical technology of stem cell transplants cannot be applied to dogs.

The company was officially created in 2018. In August 2019, Gallant raised $7 million in investments.

In a statement obtained by Tech Crunch, Hirschhorn said, I struggled with debilitating chronic back pain for more than a decade, leaving me incapable of doing activities I loved, until regenerative medicine successfully cured my condition At the same time, I watched my dog Rocky suffer from arthritis so painful that she couldnt walk. I knew there had to be a better way to treat and heal our pets, which sparked the beginning of Gallant. We are on a mission to keep our pets happier and healthier through the power of regenerative medicine.

GettyKevin OLeary, Lori Greiner and Daymond John on Shark Tank

Gallant works with your personal veterinarian. They collect your pets stem cells so that down the road, [they] can help treat the most common health problems your dog may face.

According to Gallant, a dogs own stem cells have helped with a number of illnesses including osteoarthritis, atopic dermatitis, torn ligaments and chronic dry eye.

Dr. Black, chief scientific officer at Gallant, said in a statement, In my experience with clinical trials and evaluating dogs with debilitating arthritis, Ive seen first hand how cell therapy can change lives Im committed to developing therapies that dramatically improve the quality of life for dogs.

If you head over to the Gallant website, youll find that the company is waiving their $395 processing fee in honor of their Shark Tank debut. They are also offering special pricing a $595 Lifetime Stem Cell Banking plan (typically, this costs $990). Or a $95/year special Shark Tank pricing for the Annual Plan.

They write on their site, Gallant is at the forefront of science, working every day to advance the field of stem cell therapy. By partnering with Gallant, you can make regenerative medicine a part of your pups wellness plan making every (dog) year count.

The company reveals that most dogs begin entering senior age around 7. The effects of aging can be felt as early as 4. Most stem cells are lost over time due to aging, and the procedure to acquire those young stem cells is done young, while the puppy is spayed/neutered. Ahead of the dogs spay/neuter, Gallant connects with your vet to send them a collection kit. During the procedure, the vet then takes out the stem-cell rich reproductive tissue. Stem cells are then acquired and frozen in liquid nitrogen to preserve them. They can be sent to your vet when and if treatment is needed.

What typically happens to the reproductive tissue during a spay/neuter procedure? It is discarded. And its worth noting that traditional methods for injury and age-related conditions are expensive and can have harmful side effects.

GettyHosts Robert Herjavec, Lori Greiner, Daymond John, Kevin OLeary and Executive Producer Clay Newbill of Shark Tank speak onstage during the ABC portion of the 2013 Winter TCA Tour at Langham Hotel on January 10, 2013 in Pasadena, California.

In August, according to the LA Business Journal, two dozen investors contributed to a $7 million funding round. The names of those investors were not given.

Today, Gallant is based in Santa Monica. The company pays veterinarians a commission and encourages them to perform stem cell therapy. According to the site, vets could earn up to $200 to $500 per treatment.

In a nutshell, Gallant is like cord blood banking for your most loyal friend. But will the sharks bite when it comes to Gallant? Tune in tonight on ABC at 9pm ET/PT to find out.

READ NEXT: Dog Threads on Shark Tank: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

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Gallant Stem Cell Bank on Shark Tank: 5 Fast Facts ...

Editor's note: Interviews were gathered last year and reflect that time period in the production process of Wild Type.

Do we need animals to make meat? What if we could grow cells outside the body of an animal to create the food on ourplates? Would we still farm them or would we embrace the alternative?

This is a new era of "clean meat" science, also called "cell-based", lab-grown, or "cultured" meat. It is a way to grow cells into meat rather than feed, breed, and kill the animals in the traditional sense. This is not to be confused with plant-based meats that source plant products in an attempt to reconstruct meat or genetically modifiedfoods that have had theirDNA modified.

"None of us really like the designation [of cell-based]," said Arye Elfenbein, a cardiologist and one of the founders of Wild Type.Every animal is a collection of cells, so the distinction is a bit nonsensical.

The terminology is notchiseled in stone but manybelieve thereis a need to rethink our food system, whether it be in the way we farm, the substitutes we use, or something novel altogether.By 2050, the global population will soar past 9 billion. Annual meat production is projected to rise to 470 million tonnes, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Fish accounted for around 17 percent of the world'sintake of animal protein in 2013.

The need for alternative food cultivation to reduce the burden on Earths resources is real, but how realistic is clean meat?

A handful of companies are working on making meat or seafood without animals, including Shiok Meats (shrimp) and Avant Meats (fish maw, or the swim bladders of large fish). There are plenty of benefits to be had as well as potential pitfalls to making it happen.

IFLScience talked with Wild Typefounders Ary Elfenbein and Justin Kolbeck in San Francisco as well as Liz Specht, a senior scientist with The Good Food Institute, on the future of the cell-based seafood industry.

Clean Meats And Seafood Poisoning

The mission behind cell-based seafood is to make the cleanest, most sustainable fish on the planet. Cleanest here means no mercury, no sea lice, no microplastics, no antibiotics all of which can be found to varying degrees in farmed and wild beasties.

"Likewise, it is sustainable because we dont have to take any fish out of the sea to make what were doing," said Kolbeck, who previously worked as a diplomat in food insecure regions. "People know that this is the healthiest fish you can find on the planet in that its free of those contaminants."

The overuse of antibiotics is contributingto resistance in humans, with the World Health Organization (WHO) recommending we reduce our antibiotic reliance in farmed animals. In its current stage, this is unlikely to be a problem for cultured meats. Currently, around abillion animalsare slaughtered every year for consumption.Illicit fishing alsoaccounts for around15 percent of the worlds total annual capture fisheries output, according to the FAO.

This is not to say lab-based seafood won't have its own sustainability challenges too, most notably in terms of energy use and scaling up to meet an ever-growing population.However, our current food habits are taking a toll on the planet in the form of habitat destruction, depletion of resources, vulnerable species, among others.

"A 2018 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization found that one-third of all fish stocks are being depleted faster than they can replenish. Another 60 percent of stocks are fished at the maximum sustainable level, leaving only 7percent of fish stocks that are underfished," according to a report by The Good Food Institute.

The Big Bang For Fish

To produce meat without an animal as a receptacle itself, you have to think backwards. Rather than feeding a full-grown creature, youre feeding a collections of cells to grow into the food on the fork. These muscle cells, fat cells, and other cell types grouped as connective tissue will slowly become the meat you ingest and absorb into your body.

"When you think of the world from the view of the cell, youre trying to encourage the cells to do the same thing it would within the animalsjust outside of the animal," saidElfenbein.

This requires some tinkering to get the environment right just as you would for, say, an animal in a wildlife park, except the enclosure here is steel tanks and petri dishes, not fences and gates. The food these cells love to gobble up are salts, sugars, and amino acids, as well as growth factors to help with proliferation and maturation; the scaffolding and temperature need to hit a happy medium too.

Now you may be wondering why this future of food isnt closer to reality when we have mini brains and 3d-printed body parts. The truth of the matter is that the science of mammalian research is simply further along than cold-blooded vertebrate animals.

"Most of the work on stem cells, molecular biology, and even tissue engineering has been grounded in mammalian research," said Elfenbein.

"Fish being so removed evolutionarily from mammals actually use different genes that then code for different proteins to do the same things in very different ways." Fish cells, for example, can grow in a wide variety of temperatures and tolerate low-oxygen concentrations because they dive deep into the ocean. Not so for mammalian cells.

"We are just learning how to take care of and nurture these cells," added Elfenbein. "Learning what these cells like and what they dont like. People have often likened it to taking care of a pet without being able to directly communicate with it."

What Are The Hurdles?

Cell-based seafoodis a new frontier being explored and with that comes unexpected stumbling blocks."There's still certainly a lot to be learned," said Elfenbein.

One of these is cooking the salmon, which has been presented to consumersraw so far. Wild Type salmon can be cooked, they say, but they're "working on the texture" at the moment.

"There are lots of technical hurdles here to overcome," saidPaul Mozdziak, a muscle biologist at North Carolina State University, to Nature. The challenges include better cell lines and scaffolding materials to shape the cells into tissue. Not only that but often research is kept in-house as trade secrets. There is also the question of labeling and what is required to tell consumers on packaging.

Some say they should just call it "meat", others "cell-based", others "clean meat" or "slaughter-free meat". Scalability for large-scale production is another hurdle Wild Type and other companies are considering. Wild Type has already created raw salmon in a variety of shapes and sizes, with one of their most popular dishes at an Oregon tasting event being the poke bowl and sushi.

"Today, our sushi costs about $200 for an 8 piece sushi roll when were ready to roll it out it needs to be a $6 sushi roll," said Kolbeck.

Others have noted that if it seems gross for meat to be grown in a lab, factory farming too has its considerable share of gross factor. Still, for now it's for the consumer to decide what they are comfortable with.

A literature review of consumer acceptancestudies up to 2017 from the USA, India, and China revealed men are more likely than women to accept cultured meat (except in China where it was reversed), as are those with more education and, surprisingly, those who are meat eaters rather than vegetarians. Overall, China and India were more accepting of clean meat than the USA. The demographic trends were compiled byChrisBryant, a doctoral researcher at the University of Bath.

"This is interesting because omnivores are of course eating vastly more meat than vegetarians (even assuming some vegetarians are less strict than others), and men typically eat about twice as much meat as women, so the groups that are consuming the most meat are the most receptive to cell-based meat," said Specht from The Good Food Institute, to IFLScience.

Some of thechallenges in developingtissues that resemble muscle rather than ground meat may help provide insights further down the line fortissue engineering for regenerative medicine. "Cell-based meat actually offers a much easier task than producing, say, a regenerated organ for transplantation: cell-based muscle tissue doesn't need to be functional it simply needs to have approximately the right structure and therefore texture," said Specht.

"The good news is that researchers can leverage the vast scientific literature and new technologies (faster sequencing, better characterization methods, etc.) to fill in the knowledge gaps for cell culture of seafood-relevant species much more quickly than the time it took to develop these tools and knowledge for mammalian cells," added Specht.

Is it Vegan?

Clean meat is still meat, so it is not vegan in that sense of the word. However, for vegans who avoid meat for health, environmental, or ethical reasons, clean meat could be considered a "vegan option" because there is no sentient animal involved in the production.

"Before weve only had animal or non-animal and now we have animal but not made from an animal, so what is that?" asked Kolbeck. "I think the classic definitions and categories may need to evolve a little bit to be more nuanced."

In theory, the team say they could replicate the nutritional profile of the meat to match that of the original animal,whicharea rich source of proteins andessential amino acids, fats, vitamins (D, A and B), and minerals, particularly if eaten whole.

"There are several research gaps that exist for marine cell culture, alongside several opportunities that make these research gaps worth addressing," writean unrelated team ina recent paper in Frontiers in Sustianable Food Systems."With growing interest in cellular agriculture as a means to produce meat, milk, eggs, and other animal proteins from cell cultures, and with the rapid intensification of aquaculture systems, the time is right to investigate the production of seafood without marine animals."

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Do We Need Animals To Make Meat? - IFLScience

CALGARY -- New research at the University of Calgary has taken a step toward understanding how skin heals, which could lead to drug treatments to improve healing.

We identified a specific population of progenitor cells that reside within the dermis, the deep connective tissue of the skin," said Jeff Biernaskie, a professor of stem cell biology in the U of C faculty of veterinary medicine (UCVM) and the Calgary Firefighters Burn Treatment Society chair in skin regeneration and wound healing.

"Progenitor cells are unique in that they can undergo cell division and generate many new cells to either maintain or repair tissues."

The new study, led by Biernaskie and published in the scientific journal Cell Stem Cell, was co-led by Dr. Sepideh Abbasi, Sarthak Sinha and Dr. Elodie Labit.

The intensive, five-year study offers new knowledge on why specific dermal cells can regenerate new skin, rather than scar tissue.

According to the news release, genomics techniques were used to profile thousands of cells at different times after injury, followed by the research team comparing scar-forming versus regenerative areas within skin wounds.

Remarkably, we found that although these cells come from the same cellular origin, different microenvironments within the wound activate entirely different sets of genes," said Biernaskie. "Meaning, the signals found within regenerative zones of the wound promote re-activation of genes that are typically engaged during skin development.

"Whereas, in scar-forming zones, these pro-regenerative programs are absent or suppressed, and scar-forming programs dominate."

With these findings, the research team was able to show that its possible to modify genetic ways that control skin regeneration.

What we've shown is that you can alter the wound environment with drugs, or modify the genetics of these progenitor cells directly, and both are sufficient to change their behaviour during wound healing, said Biernaskie.

"And that can have really quite impressive effects on healing that includes regeneration of new hair follicles, glands and fat within the wounded skin.

The next step in this research is developing a drug that would prevent scar formation and improve skin healing.

This proof of principle is really important, because it suggests that the adult wound-responsive cells do, in fact, harbor a latent regenerative capacity, it just simply needs to be unmasked," said Biernaskie.

Now, we are actively looking for additional pathways that may be involved. Our hope is to develop a cocktail of drugs that we could safely administer in humans and animals to entirely prevent genetic programs that initiate scar formation in order to greatly improve the quality of skin healing.

See the article here:
University of Calgary study finds insights in skin regeneration after severe burns or injuries - CTV Toronto