Coordinating Unit for the National Centers for Metabolic Phenotyping in Live Models of Obesity and Diabetes (MPMOD)

The National Centers for Metabolic Phenotyping in Live Models of Obesity and Diabetes (MPMOD) will be a multi-center initiative funded by the NIH to provide state-of-the-art technologies to investigators for a fee, with their services including characterization of mouse metabolism, blood composition (including hormones), energy balance, eating and exercise, organ function and morphology, and physiology. The MPMOD Coordinating Unit (CU) will be responsible for supporting MPMOD by creating/maintaining the website, administratively organize the meetings and workshops sponsored by the MPMOD to engage the greater mouse metabolism scientific community as well as develop the Vibrant Program to establish a P&F funding program and outreach to underserved researchers and institutions. In addition, the CU will be responsible for managing and organizing the activities of the MPMOD Center sites to provide quality phenotyping services to the scientific community. The CU is responsible for creating and maintaining the administrative, scientific and informatics infrastructure necessary to organize and facilitate their operations. The goal of this proposal is to provide that infrastructure. Over the last 15 years, our group has successfully managed and created the infrastructure as the CU for the NIDDK Mouse Metabolic Phenotyping Centers (MMPC). The mission of the MMPC was similar to MPMOD, allowing us to build upon the success of the established MMPC CU infrastructure to provide MPMOD with a robust and comprehensive service oriented solution that has been tested over time and supports the unique aspects of this consortium.