Experts discuss differences between animal models of IBD and highlight the advantages of using immune cell-induced and spontaneous mouse models of colitis for drug development.
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is defined as an idiopathic chronic relapsing and remitting disorder of the small intestine and/or colon. Treatment of IBD in patients is complicated by the heterogenous presentation of development and disease symptoms. Although there is no single animal model that recapitulates the human disease, there are several models that nicely demonstrate the key clinical and histopathological aspects of disease.
Preclinical animal models of colitis can be categorized based on induction methods: chemically induced IBD models, immune cell-induced IBD models, spontaneous IBD models. In this webinar, scientists from Inotiv will discuss the mechanism by which each of these models induces IBD. Additionally, this webinar will discuss histopathological differences between these models, as well as describe and highlight the advantages of utilizing the immune cell induced and spontaneous mouse models of colitis in development of drug targets to treat human disease.
Presenters
Melissa M. Walker
Dr. Melissa Walker is a study director in the GI department at Inotiv. She joined Inotiv, formerly Bolder BioPATH, in January 2019 to aid the IBD team with the rapidly growing interest in preclinical rodent models of human IBD. Prior to Inotiv, Dr. Walker’s research focused on infectious diseases. She investigated strategies for the development of more efficacious pneumococcal vaccines and received a PhD in 2013 from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) in microbiology and immunology. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Colorado at the Anschutz medical campus studying innate immune responses and the development of autoimmunity mediated by the STING signaling pathway.
Julie White
Julie White joined Inotiv, formerly Bolder BioPATH, in May 2018 as an anatomic pathologist. She provides pathology support to investigators working with models of IBD, psoriasis, lupus, and other inflammatory/autoimmune diseases. In addition, she maintains an ongoing collaboration in the fields of cancer and immunotherapies with the Laboratory of Comparative Pathology in New York.
Prior to joining Inotiv, Dr. White served as a pathologist, mentor, and assistant professor for over 10 years at the TriInstitutional Laboratory of Comparative Pathology (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Weill Cornell Medical College, and The Rockefeller University) in New York City. She also served as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Connecticut during this time. Julie earned her DVM from Louisiana State University. She began her pathology residency in 2000 at Angell Memorial Animal Hospital and Tufts Veterinary School. She has been a diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Pathologists since 2003.
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