| There
is a phrase that says, “medicine can cure men, but only veterinary
medicine has the potential to cure humanity”. Today that phrase
is becoming a reality of the world we are living in. In the
first decade of the twenty-first century, veterinarians not
only work hard to keep pets healthy, are playing important roles
in saving human lives. As a member of this prestigious yet,
underpaid profession, I am proud to say that veterinarians would
soon be at the vanguard of both human and animal care. This
can be contributed to government regulations, ethical concerns
of our society and the efforts of pet owners across the world.
Stem cell research, gene therapy, therapeutic cloning and even
under certain circumstances nanotechnology are words that most
politicians fear to discuss and some sectors of the religious
community even abominate. Veterinarians, on the other hand,
simply love and embrace these new modalities of technologies
that represent new ways to diagnose and treat multiple disease
conditions affecting animals and humans alike. Through
the last decades, controversial government regulations have
been effectively delaying as well as stopping the use of new
technologies in the field of human medicine. Regulatory agencies
usually adopt an adversarial position against new therapies
derived from the biotechnology and nanotechnology fields.
They try to regulate individual devices and drugs and assume
that new therapies are both unsafe and don’t work until proven
otherwise. These regulations are well known to create a bottleneck
effect in the development of new therapies and to increase
the approval time for the commercialization of new technologies.
The moral quandaries and bioethical concerns about new frontiers
of medical science represent another obstacle for their implementation
as routine forms of therapies. Research and development of
new medical technologies can be also considered a waste of
time and money by some sectors in our government. But thanks
to the entrepreneur spirit and the understanding that in our
society different moral and ethical standards apply to the
health care of pets, veterinarians are taking advantage of
regulatory loopholes to bring these technologies into the
field of veterinary medicine. After all, it may be unethical
to save a human live using a treatment derivative from human
stem cell research, but there may not be any opposition to
animal stem cell research if it is used to save a beloved
pet.
It
is not a secret that veterinarians have always been a driving
force in the world of medicine. Starting with their contributions
on agriculture a couple of centuries ago, they progressed
to be the first people performing certain medical procedures
using reproductive technology. Artificial insemination, in
vitro fertilization and cloning were introduced into the veterinary
field long before the human medical field. In the first decade
of the twenty-first century, veterinary medicine has become
very sophisticated. The common general practitioner of the
mid twentieth century performed spays and neuters, which were
considered among the most elaborate procedures of that time.
Since then, they have evolved into different specialties that
have nothing to envy of the human medical profession. Today
it is common to see pets being referred to cardiologists,
ophthalmologists, and oncologists. According to the American
Veterinary Medical Association there are approximately seven
thousand or more veterinary specialists in the United States
alone. Laser surgery, endoscopies and even magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI) are becoming part of the standard of care in
certain veterinary hospitals.
When
it comes to technologies like gene therapy, tissue engineering
or nanotechnology, there is no doubt their use on veterinary
medicine will yield immediate insights for human medical research.
For a long time, research on animal diseases has been used
as models for the same or similar conditions affecting humans.
Lets talk for example about Osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis
is a syndrome affecting the synovial joints that is characterized
by pain and dysfunction, associated with degeneration or the
articular cartilage and changes in the surrounding tissues.
In severe cases this condition produces constant pain along
with severe functional disability. Current therapy is for
the most part palliative, aiming to reduce pain and inflammation
while maintaining or improving joint function without altering
the pathologic process in the tissues. In some cases analgesic
and anti-inflammatory products do not provide relief of signs
and are less than perfectly appealing because of side effects
and cost. Research projects are underway to investigate the
use of adult and embryonic stem cells as cartilage producing
cells that may one day be used for transplantation. Adult
stem cells can be obtained from bone marrow aspirations of
healthy patients. Embryonic stem cells are taken from the
inner cell mass of blastocysts (one of the stages of the embryo
development) and grown into colonies called lines. Because
during the process of collection of stem cells the embryo
is destroyed, some sectors of society oppose to the procedure,
likening it to abortion. Some fear that allowing the use of
stem cells would create a market for human embryos, while
others believe this can progress to the eventual creation
of a human clone. Scientists had discovered that through manipulation
of culture conditions, both types of stem cells could differentiate
into multiple tissue-specific cells including cartilage and
bone producing cells. There is some concern over the use of
adult stem cells from aged animals as they may be less successful
to produce cells that can differentiate into cartilage or
bone. Embryonic cells however don’t seem to have that same
problem. Another area of investigation in Osteoarthritis is
the use of gene therapy. Gene therapy is the modification
of genetic material of living cells for a therapeutic process.
The gene of interest can be delivered into cells through a
viral agent or a nanopharmaceutical compound. Once into the
cell, the transferred gene is meant to synthesize growth factors
that would encourage the production of healthy cartilage by
the body. To date, gene therapy experiments in articular cartilage
have achieved expression of active proteins in cultured cartilage
producing cells and after transplanted into live horses and
rabbits. As we can appreciate, gene therapy holds tremendous
promises for medical use in Osteoarthritis and other health
conditions.
Another
example of the contributions of veterinarians to the world
of medicine is the research on Retinitis Pigmentosa, a condition
that affects more than nine million Americans. This is an
inherited condition commonly diagnosed during childhood and
in young adults. It produces severe vision loss that can lead
to blindness. Thanks to the use of gene therapy, veterinary
researchers have been able to restore vision in dogs born
with a severe form of this ocular condition. Other researchers
have slowed vision loss by transplanting genetically engineered
retinal cells into the eye. Genetically engineered tissues
can eventually be considered as a safe source of donor tissue
for the treatment of eyes and other organ conditions. In a
country where every year approximately eighty-four thousand
people are waiting for organ transplants, the use of tissue
engineering looks very promising.
Cancer
is a condition associated with the uncontrolled growth of
abnormal cells within the body. These cells may form tumors
that can create a variety of painful and serious problems.
A diagnosis of cancer is always equally frightening for both
pet owners and humans alike, but with today’s medical treatment,
nutrition and new technologies our opportunities to conquest
this condition are better than those of a couple of decades
ago. The experience of veterinary medicine indicates that
there are certain factors that can influence the incidence
of cancer in the pet population. Those factors include age,
breed, gender and environment. One of the newest fields of
research that could have a positive influence on the diagnosis
and treatment of cancer is nanotechnology. Thanks to nanotechnology,
a complete new set of tools for the diagnosis and treatment
of cancer in the pet population will be available to veterinarians
all around the world. For example, with the use of magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI) along with fluorescents nanoparticles
researchers are able to visualize the lymphatic drainage of
mice affected with breast cancer. This technique may have
a very important application in the diagnosis and treatment
of human breast cancer. According to the American Cancer Society,
every year an estimate of approximately two hundred thousand
women will be diagnosed with breast cancer that had already
spread to other organs. Excluding skin cancer, breast cancer
is the most common cancer among women. The use of nanoparticles
could simplify exploratory surgeries by localizing tumors
and affected lymph nodes more efficiently, making the surgical
procedures in some cases less invasive. Recently there has
been some concern about the potential toxic effects of nanoparticles
in both human and animals. While the potential benefits or
toxic effects of these nanostructures have yet to be determined
with the use of more research studies, it is important to
recall that the use of these nanostructures could also help
with other health problems besides cancer. Nanoparticles could
highlight cells or processes of interest in an animal, and
could provide us with a lot of information about how the body
works.
Unfortunately,
most members of our government, along with the bio and nanotechnology
industries and the general public, don’t understand the full
potential of veterinary medicine for the development and commercialization
of these technologies. Because of their broad-based understanding
of medicine, public health, environmental determination on
health and population medicine, the veterinary profession
can be a strong ally in forming public policy development.
New technologies are always misunderstood and unfortunately
the industry may be failing in explaining its potential. Bad
publicity of new technologies is always the result of public
misunderstanding of scientific information. The experience
of the veterinary profession dealing with the media bias and
negative publicity can be another asset that may prove useful
for these industries. While veterinary medicine is considered
one of the most trusted professions, it is not immune to the
effects of negative publicity by the media. The most recent
publicity crisis the profession has been dealing with in recent
years had to do with the use of vaccines in companion animals
and the pressure of some animal right activists groups in
regards to the treatment of farm and laboratory animals. How
the profession deals with those issues can prove very useful
for the bio and nanotechnology industries; after all veterinarians
and the industry may be sharing the same objective, which
is to improve the health and longevity of both humans and
animals. Usually negative publicity comes from people who
are off based and infused with emotions. The veterinary profession
knows that emotions grab headlines. They also know that the
use of good science, common sense, showing compassion and
being honest have proven to be the best weapons against a
bad publicity crisis. We just need to remember that perception
is everything, and if the industry can develop an educational
program based on those four points, then the general public
is going to look at the opponents of the use of these technologies
as a sector that is off beat and in some cases aggressive.
Once
the use of new technologies becomes widely spread in veterinary
medicine it will yield immediately new and useful insights
for human medicine. Soon veterinary medicine would be in the
position to offer medical marvels that may transform the legal,
ethical and regulatory sectors of the medical field. We can’t
finish this article without discussing the enormous influence
pet lovers can have in the bio and nanotechnology markets.
Pet owners across the United States spend approximately nineteen
million dollars per year on veterinary care and that amount
is expected to increase in the years to come. In the beginning,
the applications of these technologies are going to be expensive.
Some people may even be reluctant or not able to pay thousands
of dollars to save the lives of their pets. But we can’t forget
about those hundreds of thousands of pet lovers who would
do anything to save the lives of their cherished companions.
The very effectiveness of these technologies and the influence
of pet lovers demanding services based on bio or nanotechnology
will slowly, but inevitably, undermine the religious, moral
and ethical arguments against the use of therapies derived
from research on stem cells, gene therapy and nanotechnology.
Once you have a healthier pet population with an increased
longevity rate, the demand for the same kind of therapies
in the human medical field is going to increase dramatically.
Pet lovers across the world can be an important ally to the
industry in the fight to overturn those government regulations
that are restricting the use of new technologies and depriving
us from their potential benefits. There is much to be learned
about how to make these technologies useful against health
conditions affecting the human and animal population, in the
mean time, their applications in the veterinary field can
serve as a guideline to deal with them in the future of human
medicine.
|
