Mouse Diabetes Clinic at Vanderbilt

Metabolic Diabetes Clinic at Vanderbilt: Project Summary Vanderbilt Diabetes Research Center (VDRC) investigators have been on the forefront of development, standardization, implentation and dissemination of new concepts and technqiues to study mouse models of metabolic diseases. The expertise of the VDRC has been available to the national research community for the last 20 years through the NIDDK Mouse Metabolic Phenotyping Centers (MMPC) Program, with the Vanderbilt MMPC playing a critical role. As the VDRC was engaged in strategic planning for this competitive renewal, NIDDK made the decision to sunset the national MMPC program. Investigators outside Vanderbilt who had used the VMMPC contacted us to express concern about how current and future scientific projects could be conducted without the mouse services of the VMMPC. In response this input and a survey of more than 40 outside users, the VDRC proposes to create a national resource, the Mouse Diabetes Clinic at Vanderbilt (MDC), to provide investigators nationwide with unique and sophisticated tools to study the mouse. The MDC, led by experienced VDRC faculty and a highly skilled staff adept at complex procedures to study metabolism in healthy, unstressed mice, will provide investigators outside Vanderbilt critically needed mouse-related services. Skilled mouse surgeons will perform difficult catheter, cannula and probe implantations and provide surgery- based mouse models to study diabetes and metabolism. Stable and radioactive isotopes will be used as needed to delineate control of metabolic flux rates in mouse models of metabolic disease. Experience over the past 5 in the VMMPC (> 13,000 services to 98 outside investigators from 66 institutions leading to 74 papers) predicts a robust MDC usage . The MDC will also continue to provide important educational programs for the diabetes community, including a weeklong course that has been given 20 times over 15 years focused on mouse metabolic techniques. In summary, the MDC will facilitate diabetes research by providing novel services that are feasible at few other institutions to a large number of diabetes investigators outside Vanderbilt.