Core A- Human Metabolism A central theme of the UCSF-NORC is to facilitate clinical and translational research involving human subjects. Currently, members of the proposed UCSF-NORC have access to some facilities and services. Those facilities today are located in multiple departments and research units that individually lack the resources to efficiently coordinate their activities to serve NORC research needs. The NORC Human Metabolism Core will provide that coordinating function and will help integrate Core activities with NORC research. The NORC also will enable a highly coordinated research enterprise that will improve access to limited infrastructure funding opportunities. The NORC Human Metabolism Core will integrate a consortium of sophisticated facilities and expertise in order to provide access to, assistance with, and training in the use of an array of sophisticated methods and instruments for these human studies. NORC resources will facilitate use of: 1) Bionutrition services that will perform dietary assessment, analyses, and counseling, as well as design, prepare, analyze and deliver specialized diets of defined composition and/or test meals with tracers for detailed metabolic studies in humans. 2) Body composition, exercise, and metabolism testing that will measure metabolic output and functional performance, as well as total and regional fat content, lean body mass and bone density, in human subjects. 3) Support for mechanistic studies of energy and substrate metabolism including use of metabolic tracers. 4) One of the world's most advanced radiologic imaging facilities that will visualize and quantitatively measure anatomical structures and their intra-tissue lipid and water content. 5) Consultation services to provide assistance with research study design, subject recruitment, biostatistical analysis, and data management. 6) A BioBehavioral measurement unit that assesses the mechanisms by which the social environment and psychological factors interact with biological and nutritional factors in obesity and metabolic disease. In the current application, 33 of the 44 UCSF-NORC investigators currently use or anticipate using Core services to examine the relationships of food intake, metabolism, activity, body fat content and distribution, as well as biobehavioral mediators and mechanisms, in humans. Measurements supported by this core can be related to genetic (Core C) factors to improve the understanding of the complex interactions that lead to human metabolic disorders and obesity. Analogous facilities for mouse studies (Core B) will enable NORC basic researchers to test interesting hypotheses uncovered in humans. With the breadth of research programs at UCSF, NORC support for a dedicated NORC Human Metabolism Core will enable exciting research programs to pursue novel, previously unexplored directions in obesity, nutrition and/or metabolism research.
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