Of the many qualities that make the zebrafish a model organism, the fact that it shares 70% of the genes humans have makes it an ideal candidate for developmental biology research.
Zebrafish melanocytes cause diseases similar to those in people when they don’t work properly. Studying how they regenerate after injury could lead to new treatments for hair color loss and vitiligo.
Growing interest in psychedelics has spurred new research decades after hallucinogenics were tested in Saskatchewan in the 1950s. And an unassuming common fish is proving a useful test subject.
We wanted to find out which biological phenomena are crucial for pattern formation and which are just incidental. These sorts of questions can be answered with mathematical modelling.
Our series, Animals in Research, profiles the top organisms used for science experimentation. Here, we look at Danio rerio - the zebrafish. Zebrafish are probably not the first creatures that come to mind…
In the late Devonian period, roughly 365 million years ago, fish-like creatures started venturing from shallow waters onto land. Among the various adaptations associated with the switch to land life was…