Q: "Do animals have stemcells?  And could they be used to help the ferret
organs of adrenal, & ece, as well as numerous other illinss must go
through.  The reason for looking is that many of our older ones will not
suverrive the sugery."
 
A: Bob is busy at the moment, so one of his clones will answer this one.
I got to stem these jokes before I end up in a cell.
 
To answer the first part of the question, yes, absolutely ALL animals
have stem cells.  A stem cell is one that self-renews and has the ability
to differentiate into several cell lineages.  If an animal didn't have
stem cells, the original fertilized egg could grow, but different organ
cells, such as blood, skin, bone- -in essence ALL cells different from
the original single egg cell- -could not develop.  Simplistically, all
cells in the body are essentially clones of the FIRST fertilized egg
cell; it is the job of various stem cells to make all the different
body cells even though each cell has the same genetic information.
 
As for the second part of the question, it is not workable.  Even IF we
could get someone interested in ferret stem cell research from a FERRET
(non-human) perspective, who would fund the millions of dollars needed
to do the research?  Shelters can't afford the ferrets they have, and
the start-up cost for ferret stem cell research could probably fund ALL
ferret shelters in the USA alone!  Far less money would fund ADV, adrenal
research, and dietary advances, all of which could help prevent ferret
diseases rather than cure it.
 
Also, assuming the research was done, albeit unlikely, who could afford
the treatments?  I have some small expertise in the use of stem cell
research as applied to autoimmunity disease and those costs are
astronomical.  Without a pet insurance policy, you would have to be
a very wealthy person to take advantage of most types of stem cell
therapies for ferrets.  Some people could afford a single ferret taking
the treatment, but who could afford a dozen?
 
Finally, I'm not sure stem cell therapy would be much use in adrenal
disease or ECE; prevention is far cheaper and vastly more effective.
Theoretically, if you could harvest the appropriate stem cells, you could
grow new replacement organs, but that scenario is decades away and in
another country that allows stem cell research (NOT the USA according
to Bush).  Because most stem cells produce their differentiated progeny
and then are lost, the initial population would have to come from a
developing baby ferret.  Understand the ethical dilemma?
 
One exception is blood, where blood stem cells remain in the marrow (and
some other places) for the life of the individual.  One type of stem cell
produces RBCs and platelets, and others produce the various white blood
cells.  In the case of blood, not a lot of research is needed because
these stem cells live within the red bone marrow housed in the trabeculae
of living spongy bone.  I think it is possible to harvest some of those
stem cells from a healthy ferret's bone marrow, and use them to
repopulate the damaged marrow from female ferrets suffering from
depressed bone marrow caused by going into prolonged heat ("estrogen
anemia").  However, since most USA ferrets are neutered, that isn't
much of a problem.
 
I suppose a bright vet could kill the bone marrow of a ferret with
certain types of blood cancers using radiation and chemical toxins, and
then use blood stem cells to repopulate the marrow (in humans, called
bone marrow transplants), but not a lot of vets do peripheral blood
smears for cell types, so I suspect blood cancers in ferrets are
extremely underreported.  For example, in most human hematology labs, if
a doctor orders a HPD (hematology profile with differential, sometimes
called a CBC with differential), the automated blood counting machine
counts the different types of white blood cells.  If the ratios of the
white blood cell types are off, or if the machine says too many immature
white cells are present, then a drop of the blood is smeared onto a glass
microscope slide, stained, and visually inspected for abnormal cells.
If a vet never did a peripheral blood smear, it is highly unlikely they
could diagnose some blood cancers.
 
This discussion doesn't mean I dislike the idea of stem cell research.
Personally, I think it's the future of medicine.  But in reality, it is
such a long way off, especially in terms of veterinary medicine, that it
is cheaper, easier, and better to figure out preventive measures to
control disease rather than to hope for miracle technology.  It's like
the question of transplanting organs in ferrets.  Sure, an extremely
skilled vet could do it, but you would need living organs to transplant
AND you would have to fund the surgery.  How many ferret owners will
cough up $10,000 to $50,000 or more for a heart or kidney transplant?
How many vets would cough up the money to equip what would essentially
be a neonatal surgical suite with heart by-pass machinery and post-op
intensive care unit?  Stem cell research and transplantation are
wonderful, beautiful ideas, and you are to be commended--even praised--
for having them.  Maybe someday when we beat our swords into
ploughshares.
 
Bob C
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[Posted in FML issue 4493]