Grant Number: U42OD035738

Research Emphasis/Objectives

The National Swine Testing Center (NSTC) serves as a resource for evaluating the safety and targeting efficiency of emerging technologies and delivery reagents. Additionally, the Center works to generate critically needed swine models for human disease.

Opportunities for collaborative research are available to investigators across disciplines nationwide. The NSTC provides infrastructure and expertise in support of genome editing projects involving basic research or translational preclinical research.

Current Research

Research efforts focus on improving delivery efficiency of reagents and optimizing novel delivery techniques to target tissues in swine models.

Services Provided

• Study Development and Design: Work with investigators to perform pilot studies, when needed, and aid in designing projects that provide statistical power in sufficient animal number and sex distribution. 
• Biological Materials: Cells, tissues, and organs.
• Principal Investigator–Driven Model Creation: The center creates custom models for investigators. Requests are evaluated and prioritized by the steering committee. 
• Fee-for-Service Model Creation: The center creates custom animal models for investigators on a cost-recovery basis. 
• Delivery of Viral or Nonviral Editing Reagents: The NSTC team is trained and has expertise with a variety of swine-specific translational surgical procedures. The NSTC encourages collaborative efforts and training on new procedures and protocols. 
• Physiological Safety Evaluations: General and project-specific immunogenicity and inflammation evaluations.
• Genome Safety Evaluations: On- and off-target editing.

Contact Information

National Swine Testing Center
University of Missouri–Animal Science Research Center
920 East Campus Drive
Columbia, MO 65211
https://nstc.missouri.edu 

Principal Investigator(s)

Jonathan A. Green
University of Missouri
Animal Science Research Center
Email: [email protected] 

Kevin D. Wells
University of Missouri 
Animal Science Research Center
Email: [email protected] 

Center Director

Jonathan A. Green
University of Missouri
Animal Science Research Center
Email: [email protected] 

Additional Contact(s)

National Swine Testing Center
Email: [email protected] 
 

In recent years, the research community has become increasingly interested in precision disease modeling, and it remains at the forefront of personalized medicine approaches for developing models for human disease. In 2014, ORIP launched the Precision Disease Modeling Initiative (PAR-14-280) and subsequently funded three Pilot Centers for Disease Modeling (U54) in 2015.

The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in recent years holds considerable promise for biomedical research and the advancement of techniques that can improve patients’ lives. One of these techniques is radiomics, which involves the computerized analysis of features from many medical images in the development of AI algorithms that can identify tumors and other abnormalities.

The Cryopreservation and Other Preservation Approaches for Animal Models Workshop provided a forum for experts to discuss the needs of cryopreservation and other preservation approaches for animal models that are widely used in biomedical research. The discussions focused on the current emerging technologies. The goal of the workshop was to enhance the maintenance and sharing of animal models.

ORIP participates in two federal Small Business grant programs—the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR)—that provide seed funding to small businesses to develop technologies that have potential for commercialization. The SBIR program is designed to encourage domestic small businesses to engage in biomedical research and development (R&D), and the STTR program is designed to facilitate cooperative R&D between small businesses and U.S. research institutions.