Those Marvelous Zebrafish

Zebrafish have been vital part of BBS research. The fish grow rapidly and are transparent when they are young. This allows researchers to manipulate certain genes and watch as the fish develop to see how they are affected. This process has been central in understanding the role of cilia in development. Dr. Nico Katsanis’s lab at Duke University, the Center for Human Disease Modeling, has thousands of zebrafish that they are using to model what happens with various BBS genes.

But they are not the only ones using zebrafish. Here’s a video about another lab that is using zebrafish to better understand how brains work.