The DECRU personnel have significant experience in the conduct of patient oriented research, including phase I, II, III, and IV clinical trials, in the area of diabetes and its complications and related metabolic disorders (including obesity, insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease), as well as other general endocrine disorders.

Our DECRU Investigators and Staff have considerable experience in the performance of sophisticated research techniques for the assessment of beta cell function, insulin sensitivity, and counter-regulatory responses to hypoglycemia. These are a few of the methods in which we have experience:

• Oral Glucose Tolerance Testing (oGTT)
• Frequently Sampled Intravenous Glucose Tolerance Test (fsIVGT)
• Glucagon Stimulated C-Peptide
• Mixed-Meal Tolerance Test
• Insulin Tolerance Test
• Hyperinsulinemic Euglycemic Glucose Clamp
• Hyperglycemic Glucose Clamp
• Hyperinsulinemic Stepped Hypoglycemic Clamp
• and many other dynamic endocrine tests

Our DECRU has ready access to state-of-the-art ultrasound/ doppler equipment for the assessment of carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT), flow mediated vascular reactivity for assessment of endothelial function, autonomic nervous system testing, as well as continuous glucose monitoring systems. Also, in collaboration with our NIH funded UAB Pittman General Clinical Research Center (GCRC) we are able to perform other more labor intensive, in-patient and/ or out-patient, sophisticated, pharmacokinetic, metabolic, energy expenditure, anthropometric, and/or body composition studies. Furthermore, our investigators have experience in the performance of percutaneous fat and muscle biopsy for research purposes. Moreover, through our collaboration with the UAB GCRC we can also easily obtain additional expert biostatistician, pharmacy, nursing, dietetics, and other technical support.

In addition, the recent establishment of our UAB Comprehensive Diabetes Center and our newly NIH funded UAB Diabetes Research & Training Center places our DECRU in a very unique position form the stand point of potential for intra- and inter-disciplinary research collaborations and it provides us with a significant competitive advantage over many other similar, patient-oriented, clinical research units operated by internationally recognized research Institutions and Universities across the United States. These collaborations directly translate into better, more, and faster research discoveries that ultimately benefit our patients, volunteers, community, collaborators, and funding partners.