Early phase clinical research for drug development requires the investigation of safety, tolerability and efficacy of novel compounds. The latter is hampered by the absence of the disorder in healthy volunteers, which is why challenge models are often applied in order to demonstrate ‘proof of pharmacology.’ These challenge models can often be translatable from animal work and can inform the drug developer which dose, dosing regimen or application frequency should be selected prior to phase II studies in the target population. Furthermore, these challenge models represent well-controlled settings to perform activity screening of the compound. The following skin challenge models will be reviewed in this chapter: inflammation induced by Toll-like receptor agonists such as imiquimod, KLH challenge, UV-B irradiation and histamine.
Part of the book: Translational Studies on Inflammation