The National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases

The AMDCC is an interdisciplinary consortium designed to develop animal models that closely mimic the human complications of diabetes for the purpose of studying disease pathogenesis, prevention and treatment. The consortium consists of thirteen “pathobiology sites” that study complications such as diabetic nephropathy, uropathy, neuropathy, cardiomyopathy and vascular disease. Additional goals of the AMDCC are to define standards to validate each diabetic complication for its similarity to the human disease, test the role of candidate genes that emerge from human genetic studies, and facilitate the exchange of animals, reagents, and expertise between members of the consortium and the greater scientific community. To ensure that all mice generated under the auspices of the AMDCC are phenotyped for a full duration of diabetes and across all relevant complications, the consortium has formed a close partnership with the NIDDK-funded Mouse Metabolic Phenotyping Centers (MMPCs). The MMPCs (www.mmpc.org) conduct detailed metabolic phenotyping of genetically altered mice and other mouse models that are useful for understanding diabetes and its complications, obesity, and related metabolic diseases or conditions.

For more information, contact Dr. Chris Ketchum, KUH, Director, Basic Renal Biology Program.

The mission of the BCBC is to facilitate interdisciplinary approaches that will advance our understanding of pancreatic islet cell development, regenerative capacity and function. The long-term goal is to develop a cell-based therapy, or treatments leading to controlled beta-cell renewal, in order to restore normal insulin production to diabetic patients.

For more information, contact Dr. Olivier Blondel, DEM, Director, Endocrine Systems Biology Program or Dr. Sheryl Sato , DEM, Director, Neurobiology of Obesity and Developmental Biology Programs.

On July 1, 2003, The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) established Central NIDDK Repositories for biosamples and data collected in clinical studies. The purpose of the Central Repositories is to expand the usefulness of these studies by providing access to the biosamples and data to a wider research community beyond the end of the study.

For more information, contact Dr. Rebekah Rasooly, Deputy Director of the Division of Kidney, Urologic, and Hematologic Diseases.

To encourage the application of proteomic and metabolomic technologies to study type 1 diabetes and its complications, the NIDDK is fostering collaborations between researchers studying type 1 diabetes and investigators with expertise in Proteomics and/or Metabolomics.

For more information, contact Dr. Salvatore Sechi, DEM, Director, Proteomic Program.

The fundamental aim of GoKinD is to facilitate investigator-driven research into the genetic basis of diabetic nephropathy by collecting, storing, and distributing genetic samples from cases and controls of type 1 diabetes and diabetic nephropathy.

For more information, contact Dr. Rebekah Rasooly, Deputy Director of the Division of Kidney, Urologic, and Hematologic Diseases.

HBDI maintains a repository of DNA and immortalized cell lines collected from 540 families of subjects with type 1 diabetes. It also houses a database that includes more than 6700 families with diabetes, related complications and other genetic diseases.

The three major goals of the ICRs are: 1) to provide pancreatic islets of cGMP-quality to eligible investigators for use in FDA approved, IRB-approved transplantation protocols; 2) to optimize the harvest, purification, function, storage, and shipment of islets while developing tests that characterize the quality and predict the effectiveness of islets transplanted into patients with diabetes mellitus; and 3) to provide pancreatic islets for basic science studies.

For more information, contact Dr. Michael Appel, DEM, Director, Islet Biology and Transplantation Research Program.

The Liver Tissue Procurement and Distribution System (LTPADS) is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) service contract to provide human liver from regional centers for distribution to scientific investigators throughout the United States. These USA regional centers have active liver transplant programs with human subjects' approval to provide portions of the resected pathologic liver for which the transplant is performed. Frozen or fresh tissue is available from subcontractors for the usual forms of childhood and adult cirrhosis, fulminate liver failure, chronic rejection, and certain inborn errors of metabolism. “Normal” liver specimens may be requested, however, the supply is appropriately very limited and completion of large proposal requests is unlikely. A new service is now offered to provide isolated hepatocytes only to NIH investigators from "normal" human liver.

For more information, contact Dr. Jose Serrano, DDN, Director, Liver and Biliary Program and Pancreas Program.

The Centers are housed at outstanding academic institutions, staffed by experts in state-of-the-art technology. Researchers can ship mice to one of the four Centers and obtain on a fee-for-service basis a range of complex exams used to characterize mouse metabolism, blood composition including hormones, energy balance, eating and exercise, organ function and morphology, physiology and histology. Many tests are done in living animals and are designed to elucidate subtle to complex traits that would define models of metabolic disease.

For more information, contact Dr. Maren Laughlin, DEM, Senior Advisor for Integrative Metabolism.

Serum and biopsy samples from the MTOPS clinical trial represent a valuable resource for those seeking to develop and evaluate biological and genetic markers useful in the detection of BPH, or in predicting progression and response to therapy.

For more information, contact Dr. Chris Mullins, KUH, Director, Urology Basic Cell Biology Program.

The goal of the MMRRC program is to enhance the availability of and help ensure the quality of genetically modified mice for biomedical research of human and animal biology and disease.

For more information, contact Dr. Kristin Abraham, DEM, Director, Cell Signaling and Diabetes Centers Program.

Receives blood samples collected in many different studies, and processes them to create immortalized cell lines, and DNA samples. In addition, the Genetics Repository also cryopreserves blood cells, extracts DNA from blood samples, stores samples of DNA under optimal conditions, and distributes DNA samples to qualified investigators.

For more information, contact Dr. Beena Akolkar, DEM, Director, Immunopathogenesis and Genetics of Type 1 Diabetes Program or Dr. Robert Karp, DDN, Director, Genetics and Genomics Programs in Digestive Diseases and Obesity Programs or Dr. Rebekah Rasooly, Deputy Director of the Division of Kidney, Urologic, and Hematologic Diseases.

The NHPCSG, a multi-institution consortium, was established to evaluate the safety and efficacy of novel donor-specific, tolerance induction therapies in non-human primate (NHP) models of kidney and islet transplantation. The program also supports research into the immunological mechanisms of tolerance induction and development of surrogate markers for the induction, maintenance, and loss of tolerance.

For more information, contact Dr. Michael Appel, DEM, Director, Islet Biology and Transplantation Research Program.

NIDDK has funded a Type 1 Diabetes Resource (T1DR) at The Jackson Laboratory (TJL). The purpose of this resource is to collect and cryopreserve ~150 mouse stocks important to research in type 1 diabetes.

For more information, contact Dr. Kristin Abraham, DEM, Director, Cell Signaling and Diabetes Centers Program.