Summer Field Program 2008
Have our lab rats grown gills? Fish models rise to the forefront of biomedical and environmental research.
Erik Carlson
The extreme diversity of fish species presents unlimited opportunity for development of novel models applicable to both basic and applied science. The interest of the biomedical community in piscine models, as evidenced by the presence of fish facilities at nearly all the major medical schools, has been sparked by recent sequencing efforts of a handful fish genomes (i.e., fugu), several large scale fish mutagenesis screens, and the rapid development of powerful molecular tools in zebrafish and Japanese medaka. This presentation will highlight the utility of fish for tackling difficult toxicological applications such as immunotoxicant screening and mechanisms of differential chemical sensitivity. This research involves the use of both traditional (i.e., medaka) and non-traditional (i.e., Atlantic tomcod) fish models and cutting edge technology (i.e., DNA microarrays). In addition, a multi-institutional effort (The Aquatic Research Consortium) has been launched to examine the morphological, physiological, genomic, and proteomic responses of fish to environmental stressors such as hypoxia.
Presentation Slides
