Cores
The Vanderbilt Diabetes Research Center provides important scientific resources to center members and to the entire Vanderbilt and VUMC communities.
Listed below are the facilities DRTC currently supports. We encourage members to utilize the extensive network of shared resources and core facilities managed by VU and VUMC, some of which are highlighted on our Resources page.
The price for a DRTC Core Service is determined by the DRTC working with the Office of Research. This price may change so please contact the DRTC Core Director for the current price.
Co-Directors: Sean Davies, PhD and Jeff Spraggins, PhD
Managing Director: Dale Edgerton, PhD
Analytical Services Core
The Analytical Services Core (ASC) offers sensitive, reproducible, and inexpensive analysis of hormones, catecholamines, amino acids, stable isotopes, purine nucleotides, and markers of oxidative stress and inflammation.
Director: Julio Ayala, PhD
Integrated Metabolic Physiology Core
The Integrated Metabolic Physiology Core provides investigators with platforms for the design, execution and interpretation of unique and highly specialized surgical and experimental procedures for animal models.
Co-Directors: Jennifer Below, PhD and Eric Gamazon, PhD, MS
Functional Multi-omics of Diabetes
Modern diabetes and metabolism science involves increasingly complex data processing and integration, use of rigorous, reproducible methods, and knowledge on public patient-based resources important to a given question—tasks difficult for any single investigator to conduct in a single laboratory. Our Functional Multi-omics of Diabetes Core (FMDC) addresses this challenge by assisting VDRC investigators in design, conduct, and interpretation of studies pinpointing human molecular targets in diabetes, translating findings across model systems, in vitro and in vivo studies to human disease susceptibility.
Co-Directors: Lauren Woodard, PhD and Mark Magnusson, MD
The Diabetes and Metabolic Modeling Core (DMMC)
The Diabetes and Metabolic Modeling Core (DMMC) enables VDRC investigators to efficiently complement and extend their current use of mouse models with human model systems, capitalizing on existing infrastructure and deep staff expertise. This DMMC structure will enable modern gene-editing technologies to be applied to organoids and provide support and services for VDRC investigators to efficiently develop and use alternative models. The overarching goal of the DMMC is to accelerate our understanding of the pathogenesis and complications of diabetes by providing reliable, timely, state-of-the-art modeling capabilities.