All animal studies at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center are performed in the dedicated Comparative Biology centralized facility. The BRC will have available two separate rooms. One room will be used for the breeding of all mouse strains needed by the BRC investigators, and is located in the Barrier Facility. A second room, located within the conventional facility will be used for the in vivo assessment and dietary studies on all mice being screened. Additional phenotyping rooms will be available for the assessments of metabolic rate, substrate utilization and adiposity.

The weekly meeting of the core investigators will include a discussion of ongoing and planned experiments in which the resources of the animal core will be required. Experiments will be planned at least two months in advance so as to ensure that the number of breeding mice is sufficient to meet the anticipated needs for the designed experiment. The animal core project leader (Dr. Zuberi) will be in attendance at these meetings and will coordinate the breeding and phenotyping studies with two research associates (RA) that will work within the BRC project and with the Botanical Core Leaders to ensure that sufficient extract is available for each of the planned studies. One junior Research Associate will setup, maintain and genotype (as appropriate) the required numbers of animals within the Barrier facility, and then coordinate with a second, more senior, Research Associate to permit a transfer of the required numbers of animals into the Phenotyping room. Each Animal in the Phenotyping room will be uniquely identified and entered into a centralized database so to associate the animal with a specific experimental design. Typically this experiment will be categorized into one of the three submitted RO1 projects, a pilot research project being considered by the Core Investigators, or an Animal Core initiated Research Project.

This RA will work closely with the Animal Core Project Leader, Dr. Zuberi, to optimize each planned and ongoing study. If additional information is required then the relevant Project Leaders will be contacted directly. This will be facilitated by the close physical proximity of the three BRC Project Leaders. Animals being phenotyped within the metabolic chambers will be transferred into secondary dedicated housing areas to allow acclimatization to the equipment and data collection.

The Senior RA will be responsible for the assimilation and initial processing of all research data involving on-site animal studies after consultation with the Animal Core Project Leader, and Drs. Z. Wang and Butler, as appropriate and necessary. Animals that are being subjected to the hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp will be initially shipped to the NIH supported phenotyping Center located at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Z. Wang (Key Personnel of the Animal Core) will coordinate with the Project Leader and both Animal Core Research Associates for the transfer of the required numbers of animals to Vanderbilt.

Animals housed within metabolic chambers will be monitored by Dr. Butler (Co-I of the Animal Core). Dr. Butler will also oversee the quality of the research data derived from these studies, and assist with the data analysis. All results will be analyzed by the Core Leader and the Statistical group and presented periodically as research updates to all core investigators at the weekly meetings. Both the original and derived data will be deposited into shared folder for continual access.