Author: Lorraine Ruffieux

This author has written 16 articles
Read more about the article Zebrafish early embryo sorting
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Zebrafish early embryo sorting

Over the past 20 years, the use of zebrafish in the lab has dramatically increased. In 2000, PubMed displayed 657 articles when searching for “zebrafish”. In 2020, that number shot up to 3’979 publications (1). This is most likely due to the many advantages zebrafish represent as an animal model (and which are resumed in our article What are zebrafish). Particularly, their high breeding capacity is a very interesting asset for experiments requiring large sample sizes. Zebrafish can indeed produce up to 300 embryos weekly, hence why they are referred…

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2 November 2020
Read more about the article Artificial Intelligence for zebrafish egg sorting
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Artificial Intelligence for zebrafish egg sorting

Artificial intelligence always triggers a lot of curiosity when mentioned around a dinner table. AI brings in mind to a lot of people the latest fantastic movie released in the cinema with cool robots and futuristic computer systems. In reality and up until today, AI is really the science of giving to a material device the ability to show cognitive behaviour similarly to humans in order to learn and solve complex problems. AI is very present in our everyday lives and its development and achievements made in various fields is…

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19 October 2020
Read more about the article High-throughput screening and automation technologies for zebrafish assays
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High-throughput screening and automation technologies for zebrafish assays

Although zebrafish have been described numerous times as ideal organism models, manual handling of zebrafish embryos can turn out to be complex and time consuming due to their small size and the large quantities of samples usually required in an experimental setup (1). To increase efficiency of such studies, it has been crucial to develop fast and automated screening methods.  In this article we will discuss various high-throughput screening methods and automation technologies which have been developed and proven to be very helpful for zebrafish embryo and larval assays. What…

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5 October 2020
Read more about the article Using zebrafish for drug testing
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Using zebrafish for drug testing

Toxicology studies have proven to be quite translatable from zebrafish to mammals. As a matter of fact, concordance between studies ran on zebrafish and rodents can reach up to 87% (1). Therefore, the use of zebrafish in the fields of pharmacology and toxicology is opening new and innovative ways to test and develop new drug compounds and understand underlying disease mechanisms.In this article, we will briefly address the process of drug development and clinical research, ways in which zebrafish are used in the pharmaceutical industries; and the bottlenecks and issues potentially involved.Drug…

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21 September 2020
Read more about the article Reducing animal experimentation thanks to zebrafish
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Reducing animal experimentation thanks to zebrafish

The use of animals for scientific research and experimentations started over 2,000 years ago in ancient Greece (1). Although initial experiments were purely observational and comparative with the intent to learn more about human physiology and anatomy, animals quickly became models for translational research in numerous biological fields, mostly to contribute to human and animal health.In this article, we will discuss the importance of animal experimentation for research, some animal welfare concerns, as well as laws and regulations which frame research good practices and finally how zebrafish are an interesting…

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7 September 2020
Read more about the article What are zebrafish?
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What are zebrafish?

As far as research is concerned, all of us are well aware of the use of Mus musculus (mice) or Drosophila melanogaster  (fruit flies) as animal models in laboratories. But what about Danio rerio, also known as zebrafish? Over the past several years, the use of zebrafish as a model in several research areas has increased due to numerous advantages they represent. Particularly their ease of care and breeding, short generation time as well as their rapid and external development in transparent eggs make them an interesting model for molecular genetics, development, embryology and toxicology studies.In this article,…

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24 August 2020