Vanderbilt Center for Metabolic Phenotyping in Live Models of Obesity and Diabetes

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The Vanderbilt Center for Metabolic Phenotyping in Live Models of Obesity and Diabetes (VMPMOD) is built on the strong Vanderbilt history of serving as a resource to study conscious, unstressed mice. During its 20-year lifespan the Vanderbilt Mouse Metabolic Phenotyping Center advanced research in diabetes, obesity, and metabolism by providing the national scientific community with innovative and high-quality phenotyping services to study genetic mouse models. Quality services and access to experienced faculty has created a large demand from "outside investigators" to use the Center. VMPMOD consists of three cores that are dedicated to serving outside investigators. The Administrative Core provides scientific, financial, and administrative leadership. This Core oversees service requests and data management. It is responsible for educational programs and the Vanderbilt Vibrant Program that provides access and support for underrepresented populations and early-stage investigators. The Animal Health and Welfare Core evaluate mices submitted to VMPMOD, oversees mouse health and welfare, and ensures compliance with regulatory bodies and VMPMOD guidelines. The Mouse Metabolic Physiology Core provides a range of surgical services for mice and flexible experimental services performed under customizable environment-controlled conditions. These experimental services are conducted by the Metabolic Regulation Subcore (MRSC) and the Body Weight Regulation Subcore (BWRSC). MRSC uses flexible platforms to study insulin action, hormone secretion, hypoglycemic regulation, exercise metabolism, and metabolic flux analysis with and without simultaneous measurements of vO2, vCO2, respiratory exchange ratio, carbohydrate oxidation, and fat oxidation. BWRSC utilizes techniques that allow for granular measurements of the components of energy balance under a wide range of conditions. Chemogenetics, optogenetics, and fiber photometry are applied in the MRSC and BWRSC to study neural control mechanisms in concurrence with studies of metabolism and energy balance. The proposed VMPMOD has made significant technical developments that create new opportunities for advances in our understanding of diabetes, obesity, and metabolism. The Vanderbilt mouse program has been successful because it is comprised of a faculty willing to develop and make technology that is part of their research lifeline available to the scientific community and because of staff that are so skilled and committed that scientists are willing to entrust their mice, their research lifelines, with them. The same faculty and staff that has made the program successful in the past will continue to lead VMPMOD.