Experimental Animal Models in Research: Diabetes and Impaired Wound Healing

Animal models are used to study the development and progression of diseases, providing unique perspectives to better understand the primary mechanisms involved in their pathophysiology. Animal welfare laws and strict regulations have been established to protect and ensure the humane treatment of animals while they are being used for research and experimentation purposes. With the assistance of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), reliable animal models of diabetes have been established, through the Animal Models of Diabetic Complications Consortium (AMDCC), to study the disease, as well as the development and testing of effective therapies and preventative strategies for diabetic complications. Thus, the following chapter will review the diabetic animal models that are available to date, with a particular emphasis on models that are best suited for the study of impaired diabetic wound healing. Based on our own research experience, we will describe in detail the models that we currently use: the mouse, rabbit, and pig models.