# Core C-Test IT

> **NIH NIH P30** · NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY · 2024 · $132,485

## Abstract

The Translating Experimental Skin Testing with Immune Tracing, Informatics, and Technology (TEST IT2) Core
offers a full spectrum of services to study healthy and diseased skin with unique opportunities to gain further
insight on skin function through comparison of baseline state vs. skin exposed to external factors. The resulting
“skin exposome” from external perturbation of normal or inherent disease states can be unraveled through direct
provocative testing followed by sample acquisition, high-tech monitoring, full-scale bioinformatics and beyond.
Investigators can seek help with any part of their skin associated research project. The Core will offer consultation
to build a solid study design and provide a skin challenge facility for in vivo monitoring of the exposome. The
Core will also maintain a roster of healthy volunteers and individuals with skin disease to donate skin and
participate in IRB-approved skin challenge experiments. A dedicated clinical unit and staff will acquire tissue and
test exposure to environmental agents that affect skin biology. The Core will offer guidance for IRB applications
and oversee the tissue acquisition repository as a resource for banked fresh skin, blood, and other specimens.
Sample acquisition also covers non-invasive methods with direct access to molecular analysis. Safe biobanking
is accomplished through a central biorepository with secure records; coded, deidentified tissues are distributed
to scientists for use in individual laboratories or for further processing by the Cores. We further provide isolation
of various immune cells from healthy and diseased skin. Inflammation is central to many skin disorders, so
evaluation of immune cells and their interface with epidermal cells is an important, but not an exclusive focus of
a SBDRC with “The Keratinocyte and its Microenvironment” as its theme. We will provide guidance for the
expansion of immune cells from skin and blood to be recombined with 3D reconstituted human skin or explants
by the STEM Core. Prior to reconstruction, cells can be genetically manipulated with products from the GET iN
Core. TEST IT2 will interact with both cores to better understand the keratinocyte microenvironment and expand
its research to include interaction with circulating and systemic factors in the “macro”environment. Analysis using
high-end, innovative, multi-omics approaches is offered largely at the single cell level. We offer full scale
characterization of skin and extracted cells at the transcriptome, proteome, signalome and secretome levels,
and collaborate with other cores for additional omic analyses. An extra dimension is added by novel technologies
that offer direct spatial information within intact tissue to better understand biologic activity within the skin.
Subsequent to assessment, the core will newly offer expertise in skin bioinformatics to work with the large
datasets generated by single cell and other instrumentation. The Core also provides a wide array ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10843524
- **Project number:** 2P30AR075049-06
- **Recipient organization:** NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** I. Caroline Le Poole
- **Activity code:** P30 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $132,485
- **Award type:** 2
- **Project period:** 2019-08-20 → 2029-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10843524

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10843524, Core C-Test IT (2P30AR075049-06). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-28 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10843524. Licensed CC0.

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