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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Zebrafish larvae as a model to decision-making processes – a case study
We make thousands of decisions every day. It has been estimated that we make around 220 decisions each day only related to food (1). Choice is fundamental for our lives, as well as for the behaviour of all the other animals. Making a decision requires to integrate physiological and psychological information to choose a course […]
Precise spatiotemporal genome editing in Zebrafish using CRISPR/Cas9
Since 1901, Nobel Prizes have been awarded to “those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind”, in Alfred Nobel’s words1. Last year, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna were awarded with this recognized prize in the field of chemistry for their contributions to the genetic engineering tool known as CRISPR/Cas92. CRISPR/Cas9 […]
Zebrafish as a model to study the toxicity of different pesticides – a case study
Since 1974, World Environment Day has been celebrated every year on 5 June, so this month we want to acknowledge this event by reviewing a scientific article where zebrafish are used to test the toxicity of certain pesticides: Toxicity of Deltamethrin to Zebrafish Gonads Revealed by Cellular Biomarkers 1, published in Journal of Marine Science […]
Zebrafish to study a broken heart: macrophages’ implication in scar formation after a heart attack
In this series of articles, we review some of the key scientific publications of 2020 which included zebrafish in their studies. This review will cover an article published in Nature Communications on January 30th, 2020: Macrophages directly contribute collagen to scar formation during zebrafish heart regeneration and mouse heart repair1. This article challenges the current […]