Veterinarian gambles on future of medicineBy RITA POLIAKOV, THE...

Veterinarian gambles on future of medicine
By RITA POLIAKOV, THE SUDBURY STAR
Posted 7 hours ago
Faye did something astonishing last week. The 15-year-old horse trotted for the first time in years. Mostly because of stem cell therapy.

Betsy Daalmeyer bought Faye, along with two other horses, three years ago, and quickly found out that something was wrong.

"At that time, you could tell one foot, her back foot, was swollen up just above the hoof. The hooves were in bad shape," Daalmeyer said. Faye was soon diagnosed with ringbone, an arthritic condition.

Which is where P.J. Rocheleau came in.

Rocheleau, a veterinarian at the Espanola Animal Hospital, started by treating Faye with laser therapy, a therapeutic anti-inflammatory treatment similar to therapeutic ultrasounds used on people. While the therapy didn't heal the horse, Faye responded well to the treatment, which led Rocheleau to suggest stem cell therapy. Last month, Faye became the first horse to have stem cell therapy in Sudbury.

"This is the first one in our practice. It's probably the first horse in Northern Ontario," Rocheleau said.

The veterinarian, who has a background in cellular molecular biology, has been interested in this type of therapy for a while.

"It's something I . . . followed for the last 15 years. In terms of the services that we can provide our patients, it's one more tool that we have added to our box ," he said. "I'm gambling with a fairly substantial quantity of money that this is the future of medicine."

Stem cells, according to Rocheleau, can turn into a variety of other cells.

"Basically, all your organs and tissues in your whole body come from a single cell. ... At a certain point, those cells start to differentiate. They choose to commit to different pathways," he said.

Rocheleau compared the cells to young children who haven't figured out what they want to be when they grow up. Just like a child can be influenced to become a doctor, a stem cell can be turned into different tissues, blood cells and even organs.


Scientists have found that stem cells can be taken from fat in the body.

"We know you can take an adult stem cell and walk them backwards so they can unlearn, and walk them forwards again," Rocheleau said.

This means that doctors can take bone marrow stem cells and turn them into a sheet of heart cells.

"It turns out that one of the largest reservoirs for stem cells is fat. Fat's loaded with these things. ... They can migrate to an area where repair is needed and be turned on and help heal tissues."

This is, in part, what Rocheleau and the animal hospital staff did to Faye.

They took fat from her rear end, extracted the stem cells in the fat and activated them using L.E.D. light.

"(We) shone a bright L.E.D. light of a particular wavelength at them, which told them to wake up. Then, I got handed a syringe with stem cells in it," he said.

The cells were injected into the joint in Faye's lower leg and are expected to accelerate the healing of muscles and joints, which have degenerated because of Faye's ringbone.

It's too soon to tell how successful the procedure was, but Faye seems to be thriving.

"Normally, she does what we call a canter," Daalmeyer said. "You never saw her breaking out into a full run. But she's starting. We're all excited."

So is Rocheleau.

The vet has tried stem cell therapy on other animals, and was stunned by the results.

Around three months ago, Baz, a yellow lab with arthritis, came in to have the treatment.

"He came in not walking on the leg at all ... The dog has responded brilliantly to treatment. There's no lameness, no problem. ... He's not only walking on four legs, he's trying to climb the walls here," he said.

Rocheleau was even more amazed when he compared Baz's new X-rays with his old ones.

"I stepped back. I'm looking at the whole joint. I said, 'This is different. There's other changes here.' ... It almost looks like the damage has been undone. Once you have arthritis, you shouldn't be able to make it go away. It should be permanent," he said......

Cheers ..Vin