A diverse interdisciplinary research program was established, combining development of transgenic animals with the application of advanced phenotyping technologies (e.g., microcomputed tomography, metabolomics, bioluminescence) to the study of gene mutations and disease processes at the whole animal level. The research themes have included analyses into the DNA regions controlling gene expression, discovery of a gene that regulates the size of the skeleton, novel ways to interfere with breast cancer metastasis to bone, discovery that the prion protein can alter immune responses, and development of novel mouse cancer models to identify genes and environmental factors that either prevent or promote cancer.