Author: Lorraine Ruffieux

This author has written 16 articles
Read more about the article Using zebrafish for water quality control
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Using zebrafish for water quality control

Water pollution is evolving into a serious human and environmental health problem. Numerous pollutants can be found in waters, including synthetic compounds, chemicals naturally present in the environment and endocrine disruptors. To ensure good water quality and safe consumption, drinking water must be certified free of these toxins. An effective and accurate quality control system is therefore essential. Over the past few years, zebrafish have made their way into this field and can now be used as in-vivo water quality control systems. To find out more, read on! Environmental health…

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28 March 2022
Read more about the article Women’s contribution to zebrafish science
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Women’s contribution to zebrafish science

February 11th marked the 7th International Day of Women and Girls in Science. The purpose of this day is to recognise the role of women in science and to promote full and equal access to science to all women and girls who wish to participate and take part in leading actions and innovations around the world. At Bionomous, we recognise the power and value of women and we have gathered in this article a bit of history of women in science, several contributions of women to research in general, and…

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28 February 2022
Read more about the article How zebrafish can help tackle cervical cancer
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How zebrafish can help tackle cervical cancer

Cervical cancer is the fourth most common malignancy diagnosed in women and causes 270’000 deaths every year1. In 2008, the Nobel Prize of medicine was awarded to Dr. Herald zur Hausan – a German virologist and medical doctor – for his work and discoveries on HPV causing cervical cancer2. His discoveries led to a worldwide joint effort by virologists, epidemiologists, molecular biologists and clinicians to tackle the disease by preventing viral infection through the development of efficient prophylactic vaccines for HPV3. Vaccines are highly efficient and prevent the majority of…

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31 January 2022
Read more about the article Introducing Xenopus!
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Introducing Xenopus!

Over the past couple of weeks, you might have encountered men of all ages, proudly wearing a freshly grown moustache. During the month of November, many men take part in Movember, an annual event which involves growing a moustache to raise awareness around men’s health and in particular men’s mental health and prostate and testicular cancer. World-wide Movember foundations raise money and organise events with the aim of increasing early cancer detection, diagnosis and effective treatments. While raising awareness and increasing early detection may prevent many deaths, a better comprehension…

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29 November 2021
Read more about the article Get to know Bionomous: the interview
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Get to know Bionomous: the interview

On November 19th, Bionomous celebrated two years of existence. For this special event, Bionomous’ team has interviewed Frank and Ana, the co-founders of Bionomous, to get a better insight into what it took to bring the EggSorter to life, start a company as well as the projects they have in mind for the future. If you are interested in knowing more about how Bionomous was founded, read on! https://youtu.be/6Qs22R-syBk What is Bionomous? What do you do? Frank: Bionomous is a swiss start-up that was born at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale…

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29 November 2021
Read more about the article Caudal fin regeneration in zebrafish
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Caudal fin regeneration in zebrafish

Halloween is right around the corner and you will soon be seeing various spooky creatures parading down the streets: ghosts, wizards and zombies which might even be missing a limb. While ghosts and wizards are usually classified as magical creatures, zombies have something in them which make them slightly more real. A zombie is an animated corpse which has been brought back to life and although resurrection remains completely unreal, regenerative medicine has been working on replacing and regenerating defective cells, tissues and organs with the goal of restoring normal function. Some animals…

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25 October 2021
Read more about the article Studying breast cancer with zebrafish: a case study
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Studying breast cancer with zebrafish: a case study

In this new series of articles, we will review some of the key scientific publications of 2020 which included zebrafish in their studies. This first review will cover an article published in Clinical Cancer Research on March 15th 2020: Deubiquitinase Activity Profiling Identifies UCHL1 as a Candidate Oncoprotein that Promotes TGFβ-induced breast cancer metastasis1.In this article, the authors have focused their research on a subset of proteins involved in the tumour cell intracellular degradation pathway as a potential treatment for breast cancer. To get a full comprehensive overview of the…

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29 March 2021
Read more about the article Small model organisms
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Small model organisms

Over the past years, zebrafish have proven to be excellent model systems for a wide panel of experiments. We have discussed throughout our previous articles their advantages and disadvantages, how they could be incorporated to various research fields and different automation techniques which facilitate their handling in laboratories. Today we will discuss 4 other model organisms: Drosophila melanogaster, Xenopus laevis, Caenorhabditis elegans and Arabidopsis thaliana, all have in common their genetic similarity to humans, their ease of care and prolific breeding. While this last feature is particularly useful for studies requiring…

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14 December 2020
Read more about the article Studying zebrafish behaviour: robotics and automation
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Studying zebrafish behaviour: robotics and automation

In today's article we will take a step back from zebrafish embryos and discuss how adult zebrafish collective behaviours can be studied using robotic systems.Danio rerio, commonly known as zebrafish is a small but robust cyprinid, commonly found in food plains of the south of Asia, particularly India. They thrive in shallow and slow flowing-waters and can generally be found in standing water bodies, often connected to rice cultivation. This is most likely due to the high content of zooplankton in rice cultivations, a major component of the zebrafish diet. Zebrafish…

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30 November 2020
Read more about the article Morphological and phenotypic characteristics of zebrafish embryos
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Morphological and phenotypic characteristics of zebrafish embryos

In our modern world, development of new synthetic compounds and chemicals is essential for many industries, such as the pharmaceutical, clothing and food industries. This has become a major public and environmental issue as many of these compounds can be toxic and detrimental to human and animal health. In addition to these artificial toxins, chemicals can occur naturally in the environment such as heavy metals or nitrates. Although it is widely recognised that such compounds can cause damage to life, how harmful they are and how they cause disease needs…

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16 November 2020