Osteoarthritis (OA) is a global degenerative joint disease that affects over 10% of the world’s population aged 60 years or older. Despite the recent availability of more advanced imaging modalities, controlled investigations of structural and biochemical changes in human osteoarthritic joints are still restricted by the relative inaccessibility of diseased tissues for sampling and the ethical limitations in the use of sham interventions or placebo, and in obtaining control human tissues. Thus, animal OA models are used to study the disease pathogenesis and to evaluate the potential effects of various therapeutic agents intended for human/clinical use.
KBI has two monkey models of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) available for the evolution of therapeutic agents and the investigation of the pathogenic mechanisms. One model is spontaneously developed where KBI utilizes colonoscopy to identify ulcerative colitis with characteristic clinical signs of chronic or recurrent IBD.