On this website you can learn about
how zebrafish can help us understand human diseases and how to develop treatments for them.
He and his colleagues decided to study
how zebrafish regenerate tissue, looking for ways to activate this process in humans.
Dr. Yin is seeking to understand
how zebrafish regenerate damaged tissue so that therapies can be developed to reawaken our dormant genetic codes for regeneration.
How zebrafish embryos react to the manipulation of certain compounds (e.g. Ahmad et al., 2012) is measured by the kind of activity they show.
To investigate
how zebrafish tails take shape, Thisse's team removed some of the presumed pre-tail cells from early - stage embryos, then transplanted them into the middle of another embryo.
Our goal is to understand
how zebrafish do this so we can unleash our own repair mechanisms through the reawakening of our dormant genetic codes.»
Not exact matches
To investigate, Peterson's team exposed
zebrafish embryos to thousands of drugs and recorded
how each affected their reaction to a flash of light or a slight poke (Nature Chemical Biology, DOI: 10.1038 / nchembio.307).
Because
zebrafish have a similar brain chemistry to humans,
how they respond to certain drugs might indicate
how the same drugs will affect people.
And drugs with similar fingerprints tended to tweak the same molecular pathways, which suggests
zebrafish behaviour is a good indicator for
how a drug will change chemistry in the human brain.
Meanwhile, Alexander Schier at the University of Harvard and colleagues measured
how various drugs changed the sleep - wake cycles of
zebrafish larvae (Science, DOI: 10.1126 / science.1183090).
Human tumor cells (red) growing in a
zebrafish embryo may help doctors choose
how to treat cancer patients.
«
Zebrafish could have a unique niche [in cancer treatment],» says Leonard Zon of Harvard Medical School in Boston, who has used the fish for more than a decade to study
how cancer develops.
Still, Zon cautions that not all human drugs work in
zebrafish, so «we need to study a lot more patients to see, in a broad view,
how this approach performs.»
«Like
zebrafish, we have this rich source of gut microbes that have figured out
how to coexist with us and soothe the immune system,» she says, adding that «there is enormous potential to harness those mechanisms» to address ailments such as inflammatory bowel disease and other chronic inflammation.
The researchers hope that by harnessing the ability to improve regeneration in
zebrafish, they can better understand
how to induce regeneration in human eyes, which share many of the same mechanisms for controlling regenerative potential.
«Given the limited number of successful therapies available today for repairing lost tissues, we need to look to animals like
zebrafish for new clues about
how to stimulate regeneration.»
The Weinstein lab studies
zebrafish to understand
how the blood and lymphatic systems develop.
Because these genes have the same function in
zebrafish, humans, and other tetrapods, it should help researchers further understand
how our ancestors left the water and evolved limbs from fins.
«The
zebrafish model allowed us to control those variables and see
how bacterial strains tracked with inflammation.
The ability to grow a new limb may seem like something straight out of science fiction, but new research shows exactly
how animals like salamanders and
zebrafish perform this stunning feat — and
how humans may share the biological machinery that lets them do it.
Genetic studies in humans,
zebrafish and mice have revealed
how two different types of genetic variations team up to cause a rare condition called Hirschsprung's disease.
The study's lead investigator, Tom Reh, Ph.D., and his team at the UW Medicine in Seattle, looked to the
zebrafish for clues about
how to encourage regeneration in the mouse eye.
By observing whole - brain activity in live
zebrafish, researchers from the RIKEN Brain Science Institute have visualized for the first time
how information stored as long - term memory in the cerebral cortex is processed to guide behavioral choices.
The
zebrafish's transparency, small size, and rapid reproduction make it one of the best models for studying
how animals and bacteria «talk» to each other, she adds.
«New clues to treat Alagille Syndrome from
zebrafish:
How Jagged genes establish liver duct cell lineage.»
Working in
zebrafish, for example, we will identify
how small areas of the brain involved in initiating movements influence
how the entire brain processes feedback from those movements.
«Our research used
zebrafish to focus on one aspect of this system —
how the enterocyte cells inside our intestines respond to a high - fat meal.»
They described
how the drug candidate, MSI - 1436, regenerates heart muscle tissue in
zebrafish and mice in the journal Regenerative Medicine.
The researchers are using the
zebrafish to study
how heart tissue regenerates because the fish have what they called an «amazing capacity» to regenerate the form and function of almost any of their body parts.
The CCP is engaged in numerous multidisciplinary projects in other model systems (e.g. fly,
zebrafish, yeast) that aim to determine
how complex molecular circuits function and evolve in response to genetic and environmental changes, cellular differentiation, evolution and disease.
The main focus is to understand
how cell biology drives morphogenesis using vertebrate eye formation as a model and
zebrafish as main experimental organism.
To learn from
zebrafish how to enable the adult brains to better cope with neurodegenerative disease and regenerate
Dr. Voot Yin talks about
how research on the common aquarium fish, the
zebrafish, may lead to a drug to regenerate healthy heart tissue after a heart attack.
A new study describes
how MSI - 1436, a naturally occurring compound, regenerates heart muscle tissue in
zebrafish and mice.
This RegMedNet Podcast talks to Sandra Rieger (MDI Biological Laboratory; Bar Harbor, ME, USA) about
how the Rieger lab uses
zebrafish as a model to study wound healing mechanisms and nerve regeneration in peripheral neuropathy.
Studies with
Zebrafish embryos help scientists understand
how whole organisms develop from the single - celled embryo.
«By learning
how organisms such as the
zebrafish can regenerate damaged tissues and applying these lessons to humans, scientists at MDIBL are increasing our understanding of
how we might one day slow and potentially reverse the degenerative effects of aging.
In this study, the team delved deep into the nucleus of cells belonging to mouse and
zebrafish embryos — two important animal models of embryonic development — in order to determine
how the Dll4 gene is turned on.
UT Health SA Newsroom: Surprising finding using
zebrafish model explains
how recurring cancer may resist treatment
Another lab member is studying the role the sigma - 1 gene plays in regulating fear response, testing
how normal
zebrafish react to a stimulus — the flash of a strobe light — and comparing that with the response of sigma - 1 knockouts.
In cardiac research, Peterson has used mutant
zebrafish to understand
how a dozen or so drugs work.
The research lines of the Bakkers group include unraveling the genetics of normal cardiac development and body axis formation during development, investigating the molecular mechanisms of heart regeneration in the
zebrafish and
how this can be compared to heart injury in the mammals, and modeling of human (cardiac) disease in the
zebrafish to unravel biological mechanisms behind the disease and to identify new drug targets.
Researchers have developed powerful new techniques to see in unprecedented detail
how blood - forming cells develop in
zebrafish.