An Animal Models and Physiology Core has been a unit of the DRTC since 1991. It was initially established to assist investigators in the generation of genetically modified mice. The Core has continued to evolve during the past funding period and now includes Mouse Metabolic Phenotyping as a service. The Animal Model and Physiology Core provides to Center members via access to a wide array of resources, technology, equipment and services for the generation and study of genetically modified mice and other model organisms in diabetes-related research, consultation on experimental design and analysis, repositories (mouse and human ES cells, mouse models), technology development (large-scale analysis of pancreatic islets from mice to man) and opportunities for collaboration. Some services are widely used (e.g. generation of transgenic and knockout mice and metabolic phenotyping) whereas others less so (advice and training in human ES cells). Nonetheless, rather than discontinuing unique or very specialized but rarely used services, we still list them on the DRTC website since future needs of members cannot be predicted and the leadership believes strongly that including them allows members to consider all available technologies in planning their research. Drs. Manami Hara and Anita Chong will continue to serve as Director and Co-Director of this Core. They will also be assisted by Technical Directors for Transgenic/ES Cell Technology (Degenstein) and Mouse Metabolic Phenotyping (Ye). The Core will have an internal advisory panel comprised of investigators using model organisms for diabetes/metabolism-related research: mice (Bass, Bell and Nobrega), zebrafish (Prince), Drosophila (Kreitman) and C. elegans (Ruvinsky). This organization will ensure that Core services are at the forefront of model organism studies and responsive to the needs of DRTC members.
The Animal Models Core provides services, advice and hands-on-training for the generation and use of model organisms including mice, Zebrafish, Drosophiia and C elegans in the study of diabetes and metabolism. It facilitates the generation of useful models for studying pancreatic beta cells and the biology and physiology of genes implicated in the development of diabetes.
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