PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT (ADMINISTRATIVE CORE PENNINGTON/LOUISIANA NORC) The theme of the Pennington/Louisiana Nutrition Obesity Research Center (NORC) is "Nutrition, Obesity and Metabolic Health through the Lifespan". Our NORC was initially established in 2005 to facilitate and promote collaborative and multi-disciplinary interactions, foster new research ideas, and enhance the translation of basic nutritional research findings into the clinical arena and practical applications. Like most of the NIDDK NORCs, our research base is related to the metabolic consequences of nutrition on health and diseases. Our NORC provides core scientific resources for research in the pathophysiology, treatment and prevention of nutrition and obesity-related diseases and spans the research spectrum from cells to society. The Pennington/Louisiana NORC provides foundational support for obesity-related biomedical research in our region. The NORC Administrative Core provides the adhesion that coherently unifies our faculty within our theme, provides them with biomedical core facilities to perform their studies, makes them competitive for their future scientific endeavors, and attracts new and junior investigators into the field of nutrition and obesity research. The Administrative Core has the following aims: 1) provide the administrative infrastructure that facilitates successful and optimized performance of and interactions between the three scientific core resources (Human Phenotyping, Molecular Mechanisms, and Animal Models & Phenotyping), the Pilot and Feasibility (P&F) Grant Program, and the Enrichment Program, 2) increase the quality and quantity of research on “Nutrition, Obesity and Metabolic Health through the Lifespan” at our and collaborating institutions by continuing to attract both experienced and junior faculty, together with the latest research technologies, to the study of nutrition and obesity, 3) solicit, review and select pilot and feasibility projects, 4) assist with and supervise the design and statistical analysis of experimental studies performed by all NORC members in basic, clinical and population sciences, and 5) administer the collection and storage of bio-specimens and data from human research. Our NORC is a complex organization consisting of 63 Regular Members whose grants comprise our 2020 Research-Base funding of >$44 million direct costs; all of whom share in the core resources provided by our NIDDK P30 NORC grant; plus 70 Collaborating Members and 13 Mentored Members. Our executive leadership team accomplishes our aims by meeting monthly to set the overall direction of the NORC and oversee optimal utilization of NORC resources. Our Internal Advisory Board (IAB) meets every 6 months to provide feedback from the NORC members, suggest new developments and services and advise on the use of core services. Every 12-24 months, the EC and IAB meet face-to-face with our External Advisory Board (EAB).