Auditory Vestibular Technology Core Core facilities are centralized shared research resources that provide access to instruments, technologies, as well as expert consultation and other services to scientific and clinical investigators. Core facilities are crucial for competitive multidisciplinary science and have become an integral part of biomedical research. The Auditory- Vestibular Technology (AVT) Core will be established to provide infrastructure to support Research Project Leaders and principal investigators associated with the Translational Hearing Center at Creighton University to conduct multidisciplinary auditory and vestibular research. We will achieve this goal by: 1) Providing state-of- the-art methodologies and instrumentation to faculty conducting auditory and vestibular studies in animal models. The AVT Core will provide state-of-the-art technical and scientific support for COBRE-supported translational auditory and vestibular researchers in the area of auditory and vestibular electrophysiology, molecular biology, imaging and mass spectrometry. The AVT Core will also provide the infrastructure necessary to capitalize on emerging technological developments. 2) Mentoring Core users in multidisciplinary research to successfully compete for research funding. To promote an interdisciplinary scientific environment within the Core itself, and among investigators in the region generally, the Core is dedicated to an intensive outreach program designed to encourage inter-investigator communication and introduce junior investigators to interdisciplinary methodologies available in the AVT Core. 3) Developing a sustainability plan to provide Core services for new and established investigators beyond COBRE funding. To meet this goal, an active outreach program will be implemented and a fee-for-service structure will be developed. The AVT Core will play an essential role to the establishment of multidisciplinary Translational Hearing Center by providing services to research projects that validate ototherapeutics. The core will also augment the intellectual and scientific atmosphere of the local and Midwest auditory research community, now and beyond COBRE support.
