application) The Molecular Biology Core is dedicated to providing cost-effective access to services common to most applications of modern molecular biology and to provide training and technology to exploit a variety of more advanced gene discovery tools. The application of molecular genetic approaches to the study of diabetes is widely recognized as a crucial element in the progress toward an understanding of the detailed mechanism of glucose homeostasis and of the still poorly understood pathophysiology of adult onset diabetes. In addition, molecular tools have already played an essential role in elucidating some of the factors contributing to the immunological derangements responsible for the inception of the beta cell destruction underlying juvenile diabetes mellitus. However, the application of the powerful tools of molecular biology increasingly requires the mastery of a broad spectrum of technologies. Common to many of these technologies is a requirement for facile gene isolation and manipulation, which in turn calls for the libraries, cell lines, and protein and nucleic acid probes needed to isolate genes and analyze them. The speed and convenience with which nucleic acids can be manipulated are in turn dependent on key reagents and services which can be expensive and time-consuming to develop on an individual laboratory basis. In addition to making available the approaches in use for expression-based discovery of gene products and their interactions, the Molecular Biology Core will, by consolidating the intellectually broader user base of the diabetes research community with the very high volume of activity ongoing in the Department of Molecular Biology, afford substantial incremental savings for Center-affiliated investigators for reagents and services, such as the provision of synthetic oligonucleotides, automated DNA sequencing, colony picking, and DNA arraying.
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