RoukenBio has established a human ex vivo IBD platform using fresh intestinal biopsies from Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and non-IBD donors. The platform preserves native mucosal architecture, epithelial organisation, immune and stromal populations, and the inflammatory microenvironment, enabling drug developers to evaluate therapeutic response in a more clinically relevant setting.
The model supports pharmacological interrogation of diseased human intestinal tissue and can be used to assess cytokine secretion, tissue integrity, transcriptional profiling and therapeutic response across donor cohorts.
Inflammatory bowel disease is not driven by a single pathway. Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis involve complex interactions between the immune system, intestinal epithelium, stromal compartments, microbiome, genetics and environmental triggers. This complexity creates a major challenge for preclinical IBD discovery and therapeutic development.
Simplified in vitro assays may show cytokine suppression but miss epithelial dysfunction, stromal signalling or tissue-level inflammatory responses. Equally, epithelial-only models may demonstrate barrier repair potential without capturing immune-driven inflammation. RoukenBio’s ex vivo IBD model helps address this challenge by preserving multiple tissue compartments within patient-derived intestinal biopsies.
For drug developers, this provides a more comprehensive system to evaluate therapeutic candidates before moving into later-stage preclinical or clinical development.
Pharmacological Validation in Patient Derived IBD Tissue
Tissue Integrity and Disease-Relevant Histological Assessment
RoukenBio’s ex vivo IBD platform has demonstrated pharmacological responsiveness using adalimumab, a monoclonal antibody targeting TNF-α. Consistent with clinical observations IBD biopsies showed elevated baseline cytokine secretion when compared with non-IBD biopsies.
Adalimumab treatment suppressed cytokine release in IBD biopsies ex vivo, supporting the platform’s translational utility for evaluating therapeutic response in patient-derived intestinal tissue.
RoukenBio’s ex vivo IBD platform has demonstrated pharmacological responsiveness using adalimumab, a monoclonal antibody targeting TNF-α. Consistent with clinical observations IBD biopsies showed elevated baseline cytokine secretion when compared with non-IBD biopsies.
Adalimumab treatment suppressed cytokine release in IBD biopsies ex vivo, supporting the platform’s translational utility for evaluating therapeutic response in patient-derived intestinal tissue.
Histological assessment can be incorporated to evaluate tissue integrity and disease-specific mucosal architecture across donor groups. H&E staining confirms post-collection tissue integrity and reveals mucosal architecture differences between Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and non-IBD samples.
Alcian Blue-PAS staining can be used to assess mucin composition, including acidic and neutral mucins, supporting further investigation of epithelial and mucosal changes in IBD tissue.
The model uses patient-derived intestinal tissue and preserves native mucosal architecture, epithelial organisation, immune context and stromal populations.
The platform has been used to detect pharmacological response to adalimumab treatment, with cytokine readouts assessed in IBD and non-IBD donor samples.
A single donor workflow can support cytokine profiling, histology, and matched PBMC/plasma biobanking.
Matched tissue, plasma and PBMC samples from the same donor can support biomarker discovery, donor comparison.
Evaluate your candidate in a physiologically relevant ex vivo IBD model using patient-derived intestinal biopsies from Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and non-IBD donors. RoukenBio can support study design, donor selection, pharmacological testing and multi-parametric translational readouts.
An ex vivo IBD model is a preclinical research platform that uses living intestinal tissue derived from patients with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis to evaluate therapeutic candidates outside the body while preserving key features of native tissue architecture, immune cell populations and inflammatory disease biology.
