Management required for the longitudinal studies proposed in this Program Project is two-fold. First, the complex yet comprehensively appropriate animal models of diabetic gastroparesis require daily monitoring to reach the status required for therapeutic intervention and mechanistic molecular studies. Second, the proposed mechanistic molecular studies include large data sets from epigenomic, transcriptomic and proteomic approaches. The Physiological Characterization and Data Integration Core C will provide the infrastructure required to support the longitudinal animal studies and the integration and visualization of disparate and large data sets.
The first aim i s that the Core will develop and maintain a platform that effectively and efficiently integrates data collected in the Program Project. Central to Core C infrastructure is a database, the Electronic Animal Research Record (EARR), designed specifically for this Program Project because commercial solutions do not meet the overall needs required. EARR manages the workflow of physiological experiments, stores physiological data and integrates all data within the Program Project. EARR provides Project investigators the ability to visualize disparate data within or between Projects, and provide mechanisms for rapid public sharing. EARR remains flexible and is constantly refined to meet the evolving needs of Project investigators.
The second aim of this research core is to provide services required to characterize the physiology of animals and biopsies of human subjects used within the Program Project. The centralized function of glucose and gastric emptying testing within the Core provides an efficient and standardized model of care for all animal models in the Program Project. This increases the throughput, capacity and quality of the data. Core C continues to expand expertise in physiological characterization and in this regard supports Project 3 with the resources and personnel required to test the transepithelial resistance, macromolecular flux, and neurogenic secretion in duodenal mucosal biopsies. Collectively, Core C will facilitate the Projects to reach their respective research aims, and facilitate data integration within and between Projects. All Projects are united in the overall objective to identify molecular mechanisms of diabetic gastroparesis that will lead to clinical trials to test novel therapeutic interventions. The Physiological Characterization and Data Integration Core C will help to make sure this objective is reached.
Diabetic gastroparesis is a pathological condition of many individuals with diabetes where the ability of the stomach to store, digest and move ingested food is impaired, and remains a significant overall health burden. Modern biomedical science uses animal models that mimic the human disease and experimental approaches that generate very large amounts of data to gain insight to how diseases develop or they they can be treated. The Physiological Characterization and Data Integration Core C supports all three Projects in this Program Project by performing the routine testing of blood glucose and stomach motility, and also provides computer hardware and software that integrates these data with the large data sets generated by the Projects. The organization provided by this Core greatly improves the efficiency and capacity of the Projects to make discoveries that will lead to new therapies for diabetic gastroparesis. In addition, the improved mechanisms for data storage and integration make these discoveries available for a broader scientific community.
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