News and Progress

MU lab receives nearly $500,000 from the Iams company to fund in vitro arthritis research

Aug. 9, 2005

The Comparative Orthopaedic Laboratory at the University of Missouri-Columbia recently received nearly $500,000 from The Iams Company to fund the groundbreaking arthritis research conducted at the lab. Researchers at the lab have developed several unique models that allow in-depth study of arthritis without the need for using research animals. The unrestricted gift will fund a research assistant professor position in the lab.

“This gift is absolutely vital to our growth and success,” said James Cook, director of the lab, professor of veterinary medicine and surgery, and William C. Allen Endowed Scholar for Orthopaedic Research. “We have chosen to use the money to fund a research assistant professor who will focus on understanding and diagnosing arthritis toward finding a cure. The position is at the heart of the lab's mission and work, and allows us to really be on the leading edge of orthopaedic research.”

The gift, which totals $461,203, will be split into payments made over a five year period. Iams, a division of Procter & Gamble and leading provider of pet foods and pet care products, became interested in supporting the Comparative Orthopaedic Laboratory because of the lab's use of in vitro models for the study of osteoarthritis — a method that avoids the use of research animals while still offering useful, relevant and timely data.

“The Comparative Orthopaedic Laboratory's in vitro methods are at the forefront of medical science both in the potential for developing pet foods that might alleviate the pain of arthritis as well as in the breakthrough it represents for making progress without animal testing,” said Allan Lepine, a nutritionist with Iams.

Cook said the laboratory is one of only a handful of labs in the world that uses a comparative approach to develop and test in vitro models for osteoarthritis that mimic the disease as it occurs in real life in people and animals.

“Osteoarthritis in dogs applies well to humans because the same changes are seen in both species on all levels; it just happens faster in dogs,” Cook said. “This is a major advantage in that we can compress the timeframe for finding answers. The dog has been used as the model for human osteoarthritis for at least four decades and has been validated to be a good model. The great thing is that we can use dog cells and tissues from the model and apply them directly to both humans and dogs for clinical implications.”