The Radioimmunoassay and Biomarkers Core proposes to continue offering an increasing number of high- quality immunoassay and biochemistry services to our evolving group of Diabetes Research Center (DRC) basic, translational, and clinical scientists. Services over the last cycle have included radioimmunoassay (RIA), enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), multiplex ELISA on the Luminex platform, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) on the ThermoFisher platform, metabolite assays on the Yellow Springs Instruments (YSI) platform, and most recently multiplex ELISA on the ELLA platform for an expanding variety of diabetes and metabolism related hormones, cytokines, and metabolites derived from blood, urine, salivary and tissue samples. These assay services have proven essential for current research in the DRC and Penn’s Institute for Diabetes, Obesity & Metabolism (IDOM) and will remain an integral part of the future operation and development of the Center and Institute. In the next cycle the RIA/Biomarkers Core will continue existing immunoassay serives including RIA that are essential for cost feasibility of high sample number experiments, and expand services beyond RIA, ELISA, Luminex, HPLC, and YSI platforms to include development of assays on a more sensitive multiplex platform based on microfluidic ELISA (ELLA). ELLA technology will be used to implement accurate multiplexing of cytokines with enhanced sensitivity and an expanded dynamic range required for understanding the intersection of inflammation and metabolism in rodent and human studies, and so enhance the value of our expanding assay services for DRC investigators. In addition, the Core will proactively engage in outreach to the local research community of diabetes, obesity and metabolism investigators, while enhancing the QA/QC/QM of the assay services provided. In addition, the RIA/Biomarkers Core will integrate delivery of new and existing assay services to an expanding base of investigators via shared resources within the Smilow Center for Translational Research. The Core is located on the 12th floor in IDOM and in near proximity to the Islet Cell Biology, Functional Genomics, and Rodent Metabolic Phenotyping Cores that fosters close interactions among these DRC Cores. The integrated delivery of assay services provided by the Core will be enhanced by further development of informatics infrastructure for ordering, tracking, billing and delivery of service using iLab. The performance of a large number of RIAs and ELISAs in a central core facility rather than in scattered locations throughout the University provides a significant overall savings in equipment, personnel effort, and supplies for our investigators, while importantly allowing for the generation of results with better quality due to our enhanced quality control/quality assurance/quality management (QA/QC/QM) processes. We will continue collaborations with other NIH-sponsored core resources and the School of Medic...