Verena Zimermann, zebrafish and the Jazwinska Group

New year, new beginning! That is particularly true for Verena Zimmermann, who retired in December 2024 from her role as a laboratory technician at the Jazwinska Group (University of Fribourg, Switzerland). Verena's career The Jazwinska GroupVerena's retirementReferences Verena's career Before joining the Jazwinska Group, Verena had worked for both companies and academic research institutions on various topics and using different models. She has experience with human blood, beagles, rabbits, Drosophila, and C. elegans. It was with the Jazwinska Group, 14 years ago, that she began working with the zebrafish model.Verena is a…

Comments Off on Verena Zimermann, zebrafish and the Jazwinska Group

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…

Comments Off on Caudal fin regeneration in zebrafish

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 model of scarring after a heart attack and implicates macrophages, a type of white blood cell of the immune system, as direct contributors to collagen deposition during this process.Heart attack and heart failureScarring process after a…

Comments Off on Zebrafish to study a broken heart: macrophages’ implication in scar formation after a heart attack