Metabolic Procedures and Surgeries

With increasing frequency, diabetes investigators have employed surgical procedures to study the metabolic function and consequences of diabetes. In response to these growing needs, the DRC has established a program that makes complex surgical procedures available to the Columbia DRC investigators. Currently, these procedures include :

• Enteral feeding via permanent and short-term gastric and intestinal feeding tubes
• Intravenous infusions
• Stereotactic viral injections into the brain and adipose tissue depots
• Bariatric surgery
• Bone marrow transplantation
• Parabiosis

Each of these procedures has been refined by the staff of the MMFPC and standard operating procedures established. 

Procedures

All investigators first contact Dr. Xu to arrange an initial consultation during which the investigator explains their needs and Dr. Xu explains both the procedures offered and their limitations.   A second consultation is then arranged with Dr. Ferrante or Dr. Emiliano to design experiments using metabolic surgical procedures, and access to the scheduling calendar is provided. Drs. Ferrante and Emiliano work with each investigator to ensure they adhere to IACUC guidelines. Once an experimental design is agreed upon and approved, mice are transferred to the Russ Berrie Pavilion Mouse Surgical Procedure Suite through the Institute of Comparative Medicine.