UC-Davis to help vets, foal owners bank stem cells

Davis, Calif.

-- The University of California-Davis (UC-Davis) School of Veterinary Medicine is offering veterinarians and horse owners a way to collect and save equine umbilical cord tissue to harvest stem cells.

The Regenerative Medicine Laboratory provides kits to veterinarians or horse owners for simplified collection of umbilical cord tissue immediately after a foal is born. The tissue is then sent to the UC-Davis laboratory, where it is processed. One dose of stem cells would be sent back to the horse owner’s veterinarian and another dose would be frozen and stored for up to four years at UC-Davis.

The service, which costs $1,625 for the collection kit and a four-year storage fee, gives veterinarians and horse owners more options for stem-cell treatments during the horse’s lifetime.

“The advantage is that, unlike collecting stem cells derived from bone marrow or fat, umbilical cord banking doesn’t require the horse undergo a traumatic or invasive procedure,” says Sean Owens, DVM, medical director of the UC-Davis Regenerative Medicine Laboratory.

More information about the service can be obtained by calling the laboratory at (530) 754-0400 or emailing regenlab@ucdavis.edu.