One of the challenges that accompanies stem cell therapy is having enough cells for an effective treatment; in some scenarios treatment must wait several weeks for cell expansion before it can begin. The good news is that researchers are getting closer to determining the most efficient way to expand stem cells.

John Kisiday, PhD, assistant professor of equine orthopedics in the department of clinical sciences at the Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and a team recently set out to determine the most efficient way to expand adult bone marrow-derived stem cells.

Using six donor horses, Kisiday and colleagues harvested two 5 ml samples from one side of each horse’s pelvis before aspirating a 50 ml sample from the other side of the pelvis. Additionally, two samples from each horse’s sternum were harvested in a similar manner (i.e., two 5 ml samples followed by one 50 ml sample collected from two locations)