VPN Plus+ ExclusiveStem cell therapies – leaping before looking?March 31, 2021By Brennen McKenzie, MA, MSc, VMD, cVMAAs often happens, preliminary research in laboratory animals and in human medicine led to relatively rapid commercialization and clinical use of stem cell treatments in veterinary medicine well before robust clinical trial evidence in companion animals with natural disease had been developed. Fortunately, as better evidence has been slowly accumulated, it is looking more and more like we may have “guessed right” in this case: the risks to our patients are minimal (though not negligible) and there may well be meaningful benefits.
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Can allogenic stem cells treat canine atopic dermatitis?November 7, 2017 VetCell Therapeutics, a pet-focused cell therapy division of PrimeGen Biotech, announced it will partner in a collaborative clinical study with Western University of Health Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine to study the feasibility of treating canine atopic dermatitis (AD) with mesenchymal stem cells (MSC). The project's goal is to determine if allogeneic MSCs can serve as a safe, effective, and more extended treatment alternative to corticosteroids and other medical strategies for treating canine AD. The project will be led by the principal investigators Jijun Hao, Ph.D., assistant professor, and Gagandeep Kaur, DVM, Ph.D., a veterinarian and assistant professor, both at Western University of Health Sciences. VetCell Therapeutics will supply allogeneic MSCs for the study. Recently, cell therapies using MSCs have emerged as a novel approach to treating various chronic and degenerative diseases due to the cells' ability to modulate the immune system and control inflammation, according to VetCell Therapteutics. The company said it believes this can aid in relieving symptoms associated with AD. In addition, MSCs boast properties of low immunogenicity making them a promising, low-risk cell-based therapy, the company added. According to VetCell Therapeutics, it produces its MSCs …