Core-003: Functional Assessment Core

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Michigan Integrative Musculoskeletal Health Core Center – Core D Project Summary Functional assessment of musculoskeletal phenotypes in animal models is critical to identifying mechanisms of how diseases affect the integrative health and function of patients suffering from various musculoskeletal conditions. The ability to study musculoskeletal phenotypes across a wide-ranging scale requires considerable expertise and highly specialized training in physiology, biophysics, and engineering, as well as access to costly, high-resolution, state-of-the-art equipment. While occasionally the expertise and equipment for single approaches can be developed in a single laboratory, developing these approaches can be cost prohibitive, redundant, and can lead to proliferation of non-uniform techniques across the field. The Functional Assessment Core (Core D) will bring together the animal, organ, tissue, and in some cases cellular level phenotyping capabilities currently used within individual laboratories at the University of Michigan into a cohesive and easily accessible core service that can be used by the entire musculoskeletal research community. Core D will integrate individual laboratory approaches to musculoskeletal biology and engineering by including state-of-the-art measurements in bone mechanics, muscle function and mechanics, and tendon mechanics. This will be implemented through prioritization of experiments for hypothesis-based testing, coordination of cross-core experiments, execution of high precision phenotyping studies, and collaboration among investigators within and external to the institution. Core D will also focus on expanding its offerings to both enhance the capabilities of the current Research Community and to further expand the breadth and depth of the Core Center. Four Aims are proposed: the Core will provide expertise and guidance on the design of experiments in Aim 1, and access in Aim 2 to state-of-the-art technologies and experts to allow quantification of animal, organ, and tissue function and to provide training in these methodologies. Further, in Aim 3, the Core will provide guidance with interpretation of results and make recommendations for future studies. Lastly, the overall goal of Aim 4 is to enable the research community through ongoing technology development and education. By providing the framework for testing samples, training investigators, and sharing resources, the Core will accomplish its goals of high level support for musculoskeletal phenotyping and the sharing of standard operating procedures among the greater musculoskeletal research community.