Designing an interval observer with stability properties for nonlinear systems, which are not cooperative and not globally Lipschitz, is an open problem. This paper studies a general canonical structure for which interval observers with input to state stability (ISS) properties can be derived. This canonical block triangular nonlinear structure is rather general and may result from a change of coordinates or an output injection. We provide a general method for explicitly constructing framers for systems for which can be given such a structure. We also construct ISS interval observers when additional properties are satisfied. The systems we consider are in general not cooperative and not globally Lipschitz. We illustrate the constructions by designing a framer and an ISS interval observer for two models of bioreactors. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.