Vanderbilt Mouse Diabetes Clinic

Overview

The Mouse Diabetes Clinic at Vanderbilt (MDC) will be a national resource providing investigators nationwide with unique and sophisticated tools to study the mouse. The MDC, led by experienced VDRC faculty and a highly skilled staff adept at complex procedures to study metabolism in healthy, unstressed mice, will provide investigators outside Vanderbilt critically needed mouse-related services.

The MDC will facilitate diabetes research by providing novel services that are feasible at few other institutions to a large number of diabetes investigators outside Vanderbilt. The MDC will also continue to provide important educational programs for the diabetes community, including a weeklong course on mouse metabolic techniques.

Services

Serving External Investigators

Metabolic Regulation

Regulation of metabolic fluxes in vivo including clamp and exercise protocols. Arterial and venous catheterization a week before experiments allow studies without stress. Intravital imaging and novel surgical preparations are available.

Body Weight Regulation

Regulation of body weight from whole body mitochondria. Metabolic and behavioral components of energy balance are measured with high precision and time resolution. Mouse bariatric and other surgical models are used to study weight loss.

Analytical Resources

Specialized analytical techniques consist of four subcores: (1) Hormone Assay and Analytical Services, (2) Lipids, Lipoproteins, and Atherosclerosis, (3) Mouse Pathology, (4) Metabolic Flux Analysis.

Surgical Services

Specialized surgical procedures for indwelling catheters, CNS implantations, study of GI-liver function, and parabiosis. Development of new surgical procedures and surgical training are also available.