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The GCRC Core Laboratory

The mission of the Core Laboratory at UTMB is to support outstanding clinical investigation by facilitating processing and analysis of blood and tissue samples and by assisting with those aspects of experimental design that deal with acquiring laboratory data and their interpretation.

We also facilitate investigator's research that requires imaging and body composition measurements.

Melinda Sheffield-Moore, PhD is the Director of the Core Laboratory. 

Dr. Melinda Sheffield-Moore is currently a tenured Associate Professor of Medicine in the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Endocrinology & Metabolism. Additionally she is a faculty member in the Cell Biology Graduate Program, Assistant Program Director of the General Clinical Research Center and Director of the GCRC Core Laboratory. She received her Ph.D. in Human Bioenergetics from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana in 1997. Following a 2 year post-doctoral fellowship in metabolism, trauma and burns at UTMB, she was hired as an Assistant Professor. In the past 7 years, Dr. Sheffield-Moore has conducted a series of aging studies in humans as a fellow of the Sealy Center on Aging and is a Pepper Center investigator. In particular, she studies the effects of exercise, nutrition and androgens on skeletal muscle protein metabolism in young and older volunteers.

Dr. Sheffield-Moore has a R01 grant funded by the National Institutes of Aging to study the effects of skeletal muscle tissue perfusion on muscle protein metabolism in aging. These studies are conducted as part of the NIH-funded Claude D. Pepper Aging Center whose mission is to find ways to counter age-related sarcopenia (i.e. loss of muscle mass and function with age). This effort has led to the performance of numerous ongoing and recently completed studies which have furthered our understanding of the aging process as it relates to muscle metabolism.

• To process, label, catalog, and store clinical research samples and distribute them to research laboratories, in accordance with College of American Pathology guidelines and current human subjects regulatory guidelines. 

• To provide a dependable service for indirect calorimetry.

• To provide additional laboratory services and technical guidance for two broad purposes: 

By providing space and personnel, to assist individual investigators in the development or application of selected research-quality assays.

To attend to the needs of multiple investigators to reduce redundant funding for the same laboratory technique.

• To educate and train physicians and non-physicians in clinical research and to stimulate research collaborations between basic scientists and clinical investigators.

We have an approved graduate level course in research design and laboratory methods for clinical investigation. This course is part of the Clinical Science Curriculum, which awards the M.S. or PhD degree to physicians interested in clinical research (supported in part by a K30 grant). The Molecular Biology Training Core is jointly operated by the Dean’s Office and the Sealy Center for Molecular Science.

This Core facilitates training of investigators in the general use of molecular biology techniques, but each of the other basic science cores described in the application also incorporate elements of training. Our goal is to integrate the activities of the Core Laboratory with these various courses to give students and investigators the opportunity for practical experience. We feel that this service to prospective GCRC investigators is particular important to the following: young investigators; those being recruited or newly recruited; physicians with large clinical burdens; and, possibly, basic scientists wishing to collaborate in human research. 

DEXA Nutrition and metabolic studies often utilize DEXA for the determination of lean body mass and bone mineral density. A large number of current projects require multiple DEXA measures each for the determination of lean body mass in conjunction with nutritional and metabolic interventions. The simultaneous acquisition of lean body mass and bone mineral density further enhances the analytical value of DEXA.

TBK The total body gamma counter is a unique instrument that affords us the capability of determining lean body mass in populations with altered fluid compartmentalization.

Currently we have the instrument tuned to count the natural gamma emissions of 40K from the body, which we presently call the total body potassium counter (TBK).

This methodology is particularly useful in study populations where body fluid compartmentalization is altered by trauma or pharmacology. For example, burn injury results in a dramatic loss of intravascular fluid and tissue edema. Compartmental fluid balance is often not restored until the patient is near discharge; one of the shortcomings of DEXA in these situations is that abnormally increased extracellular water will distort the usual relationship between fat-free mass and cellular mass (some may be in the vascular space) is often erroneously measured as lean body mass. In this respect, TBK provides a rapid, reliable, and non-invasive method for quantifying lean body mass changes in these populations.

Note: The devastation caused by Hurricane Ike resulted in the loss of the possibly irreplaceable total body potassium counter. It was located on the first floor of the hospital and suffered damage by water. Please call the GCRC for the current availability status of this instrument.

MRI/MRS Magnetic resonance imaging has been used by many of our GCRC investigators for the determination of muscle volume and fat changes associated with long-term interventions. Lower body imaging is employed to study leg muscle and fat changes associated with inactivity, the use of anabolic agents in aging, and pediatric and adult burn rehabilitation.