General Resources
In addition to Cores directly supported by the Vanderbilt Diabetes Research Center, investigators may find the following resources—both internal and external—particularly useful for their research programs.
The VDRC is supported by funding from the NIH (P30 DK20593).
Vanderbilt Diabetes Day
Director: Rafael Arrojo e Drigo, PhD
A DRTC-sponsored annual conference bringing together diabetes researchers and trainees. Learn more about Diabetes Day and the VDRC's 50th anniversary here.
More information on Diabetes Day 2026 coming soon!
Director: Julio Ayala, PhD
The Vanderbilt Mouse Metabolic Phenotyping Cener (MMPC) advances research by providing novel experimental tools to the scientific community for phenotyping genetic mouse models related to diabetes, obesity, and other metabolic diseases.
NIDDK’s Diabetes Research Centers program supports extramural research institutions that have established an existing base of high-quality, diabetes-related research. Diabetes Research Centers promote new discoveries and enhance scientific progress through support of cutting-edge basic and clinical research related to the etiology and complications of diabetes, with the goal of rapidly translating research findings into novel strategies for the prevention, treatment and cure of diabetes and related conditions.
The Community Engagement and Research Core (CERC) is a partnership between Meharry Medical College and the Vanderbilt University Medical Center which brings academic and community partners together to improve community health and healthcare through research. CERC shapes and supports innovative and translational community-engaged research by preparing scientists to impact the public’s health, building the capacity for communities to engage in research and creating transformative strategies and structures to support academic-community partnerships.
BioVU Program Lead Investigator: Dan Roden, MD
The Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (VICTR) is dedicated to transforming the way ideas and research discoveries make their way from origin to patient care, with programs aimed at speeding translation of scientific discoveries and improving treatment and health outcomes for our patients and communities.
BioVU is Vanderbilt’s biorepository of DNA extracted from discarded blood collected during routine clinical testing and linked to de-identified medical records in the Synthetic Derivative, providing a valuable resource to Vanderbilt investigators for studies of genotype-phenotype associations.
Scientific Director: Marcela Brissova, PhD
Pancreatlas is an online imaging resource that houses reference datasets from human pancreas samples, achieved through the generosity of organ donors and their families. The database was developed by VDRC investigators and Creative Data Solutions.
Originally called the Precision Medicine Initiative, All of Us is an historic effort to gather data from 1 million or more people to accelerate research and improve health. The project aims to provide a new window into the intersection of human biology, lifestyle and the environment, and more than 270,000 study participants are registered. The program's cloud-based research platform, the Researcher Workbench, was created by a team led by VUMC working alongside the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Verily Life Sciences (a subsidiary of Alphabet, Inc.).
Discoveries in Medicine is a publication of Vanderbilt University Medical Center covering breakthroughs in medical science and patient care and featuring articles on Diabetes & Endocrinology.