History
The National Gnotobiotic Rodent Resource Center (NGRRC) is a nationwide resource for germ-free and gnotobiotic mice and associated services. Gnotobiotic means “known life” and refers to the selective colonization of germ-free mice with microbes. The Center is an expansion of the Gnotobiotic Core of the Center for Gastrointestinal Biology and Disease (CGIBD), an NIH-NIDDK funded Digestive Diseases Research Core Center at UNC-Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University. Equipment for the expansion of the CGIBD Gnotobiotic Core was provided initially by a North Carolina Biotechnology Center grant with additional funds from the UNC-CH School of Medicine and from an administrative supplement to the CGIBD. In 2004, we leveraged our expertise in gnotobiotics to obtain a grant from the NIH’s National Center for Research Resources, Comparative Medicine Group to establish the NGRRC. Current funding for the NGRRC is provided primarily by the NIH Office of the Director (P40OD010995), with additional funds from the CGIBD’s NIDDK grant (P30DK034987) and the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation.Purpose
We provide germ-free and gnotobiotic mice and expertise, including germ-free rederivation, to investigators across the country whose research focuses on areas such as diabetes, metabolic syndrome, atherosclerosis, arthritis and intestinal biology and disease. In addition, we support pilot studies for investigators to generate preliminary results for grant applications. We also offer a 4-day hands-on training course for technical staff from institutions planning to establish their own gnotobiotic facilities.Leadership
R. Balfour Sartor, MD, Director, is the Midget Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology at the University of North Carolina (UNC), where he specializes in inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) and directs the UNC Multidisciplinary IBD Center. Dr. Sartor has been a faculty member at UNC for his entire academic career, where he is the Co-Director of the Center for Gastrointestinal Biology and Disease and former Co-Chief of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology (Research). His research focuses on developing and applying rodent models of chronic, immune-mediated intestinal inflammation relevant to IBD, investigating host-microbial interactions and performing clinically relevant translational studies of IBD patients. Dr. Sartor investigates host genetically programmed immune responses to luminal resident bacteria using gnotobiotic rodents and patient-derived samples and studies the influence of dietary and environmental factors on intestinal microbiota composition and function.Allison Rogala, DVM, DACLAM, Co-Director, serves as the liaison between The National Gnotobiotic Rodent Resource Center and the Department of Comparative Medicine. She supervises the sterile embryo transfers and Caesarean sections to derive new germ-free mouse lines. She is responsible for the health of our rodent population as well as the cryopreservation of embryos and sperm for all breeding stock.
Josh Frost, BA, RLATg is the Facility Manager. He supervises all technical staff and trains animal technicians. He is responsible for the day-to-day management of the facility.
Casey Theriot, PhD, is an Assistant Director of the CGIBD and directs the Gnotobiotic Animal Core at NCSU. Her long-term research goal is to understand how different members of the gut microbiota contribute to bile acid metabolism and how this affects ecological mechanisms governing relationships between microbes. Her current research focuses on how gut microbial derived secondary bile acids inhibit the C. difficile life cycle using in vitro and in vivo models. She is also working on manipulating the gut microbiota to rationally alter the composition of the bile acid pool in the gut, which has the potential to improve preventative and therapeutic approaches against many human diseases. The goal is to design targeted bacterial approaches to prevent and treat gastrointestinal diseases – improving clinical outcomes.