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Monday, 16 December 2013

The zebrafish is the new lab mouse - and is being used in medical research laboratories around the world to carry out research on human inherited diseases as well as Alzheimer's, cancers and diabetes.

WA will get its first multi-user zebrafish facility soon, thanks to an Australian Research Council grant of $400,000.

Winthrop Professor David Hunt from The University of Western Australia - where the facility will be built - said the zebrafish was a powerful research tool.

"It's ‘better' than a mouse because its skin is transparent in early life, and because it produces bigger broods and is cheaper to feed and house," he said.

"Human mutations can be replicated in its genes and it is easier in the zebrafish than in the mouse to make targeted mutations and to do other manipulations to regulate gene expression."

Professor Hunt said Nobel Prize-winner Thomas Hunt Morgan was the first to use an animal model, in the early 20 th century. In his case, he used the fruit fly to establish his chromosome theory of heredity.

"The lab mouse was first used in the early 1900s. It was derived from Japanese fancy mice bred in captivity for over 2000 years," Professor Hunt said. "In the 1970s, the nematode worm was added to the animal model menagerie.

"The zebrafish began to be used as a model in the United States from the 1970s, initially in studies of development where the transparency of its body was a major asset, allowing researchers to watch the early stages.

"Every international university needs a zebrafish facility if it wants to attract and retain the top researchers."

Media references

Winthrop Professor David Hunt (UWA School of Animal Biology)(+61 8) 6488 3044

David Stacey (UWA Public Affairs)(+61 8)  6488 3229  /  (+61 4) 32 637 716

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