Chimp Stem Cells
By: NBC News
Updated: May 16, 2012
Out at the Save the Chimps facility there's usually a lot of noise, but one of the residents is very quiet, sedated in fact.
Inside the VetMobile is Angie. She's 25 and has a torn ACL.
"With chimps we don't want to do a lot of surgical work, put hardware in their knee, they tend to pull out that sort of thing," said Dr. Linda Gregard, a veterinarian.
About 20 miles away, hope is being mixed in a centrifuge. Inside tubes is Angie's own tissue.
"With this tissue processing that so we can extract stem cells from tissue," said Dr. Darrell Nazareth, veterinarian.
Dr. Darrell Nazareth with the Florida Veterinary League has been using stem cells to treat dogs with arthritis for the past two years. This is his first chimp.
"We're not using embryonic stem cells, we're not taking embryos and taking their stem cells from there, we're just using the patient's own tissue," said Dr. Nazareth.
The company behind the technology says by harnessing the body's own ability to heal itself, this could find wider use in humans. An hour later, Dr. Nazareth is at the Save the Chimps facility, injecting 2 billion stem cells into Angie's knee.
Doctors hope to find out in the next two to three weeks how successful the stem cell therapy treatment was. It has worked for other animals in the past and they are hoping it can help Angie too.
Inside the VetMobile is Angie. She's 25 and has a torn ACL.
"With chimps we don't want to do a lot of surgical work, put hardware in their knee, they tend to pull out that sort of thing," said Dr. Linda Gregard, a veterinarian.
About 20 miles away, hope is being mixed in a centrifuge. Inside tubes is Angie's own tissue.
"With this tissue processing that so we can extract stem cells from tissue," said Dr. Darrell Nazareth, veterinarian.
Dr. Darrell Nazareth with the Florida Veterinary League has been using stem cells to treat dogs with arthritis for the past two years. This is his first chimp.
"We're not using embryonic stem cells, we're not taking embryos and taking their stem cells from there, we're just using the patient's own tissue," said Dr. Nazareth.
The company behind the technology says by harnessing the body's own ability to heal itself, this could find wider use in humans. An hour later, Dr. Nazareth is at the Save the Chimps facility, injecting 2 billion stem cells into Angie's knee.
Doctors hope to find out in the next two to three weeks how successful the stem cell therapy treatment was. It has worked for other animals in the past and they are hoping it can help Angie too.
