# Metabolic Phenotyping Core

> **NIH NIH P30** · MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL · 2021 · $183,408

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
Nutrition- and obesity-related research is of critical importance given the tremendous impact of metabolic
conditions on human health. While nutrition and obesity related research enables investigators to generate
many disease-related hypotheses, the technology needed to create disease-relevant models and to test these
hypotheses lies outside the expertise of many individual research groups. The Metabolic Phenotyping Core will
serve as a single, central access point for NORC-H investigators to enable both model creation in metabolically
relevant cell types and detailed phenotypic characterization of human and model-derived samples. The
fundamental activities of the core are divided into two central activities, both supported by expert faculty with
extensive experience in all Core activities: 1) model generation, which brings genomic targeting and modern
genome editing to the hands of all NORC-H investigators, and 2) metabolic phenotyping, ranging from
metabolomics to whole-animal physiology. Model generation will make use of state-of-the-art gene targeting
resources available at MGH, the Broad Institute, and Harvard University, permitting NORC-H members to
model disease-related processes in primary cells, immortalized cells, and patient-derived inducible pluripotent
stem cells. Thereafter, the Core's battery of customizable, metabolic phenotyping assays can be employed to
characterize human tissue and blood samples, or model-derived samples provided by the investigator or
generated by the Core's model-generation activities. The Core has expert capabilities for metabolomics
(tandem-mass spectrometric analysis of endogenous metabolites), characterization of metabolism and
respiratory activity of cells in culture, analysis of insulin signaling and gene expression, and physiologic
characterization of mouse models of human disease. Under the Core, complex analyses and techniques that
require expertise and infrastructure that are difficult or impossible for individual laboratories to attain are made
readily available to NORC-H investigators. The innovation of the Core, in addition to its ability to provide state-
of-the-art analyses to the broad NORC-H membership, is its centralization of resources in the Harvard
community to a single access point. This centralization allows NORC-H investigators to ask an innumerable
number of nutrition and obesity related research questions with great efficiency and economy. The significance
of the Core's activities lie in its ability to encourage both detailed characterization of human samples and to
enable translational, mechanistic studies that cannot be conducted in humans. Finally, the Core will serve as a
resource to NORC-H membership to consult and provide education on model development and metabolic
characterization projects.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10216223
- **Project number:** 5P30DK040561-25
- **Recipient organization:** MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL
- **Principal Investigator:** ALEXANDER A SOUKAS
- **Activity code:** P30 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $183,408
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 1997-09-01 → 2022-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10216223

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10216223, Metabolic Phenotyping Core (5P30DK040561-25). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10216223. Licensed CC0.

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