$5.4m fish facility opened

Monash Memo, 26 November 2008

http://www.monash.edu.au/news/monashmemo/stories/20081126/zebra.html

Monash University has established the largest zebra fish research facility in the Southern Hemisphere.

The multi-million dollar aquarium, housing thousands of the six-centimetre-long tropical fish in 6500 tanks, could help researchers find better treatments for incurable diseases such as muscular dystrophy and heart disease.

The Victorian Innovation Minister Gavin Jennings last week officially opened the $5.4 million facility, located within Monash University's Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute (ARMI) at the University's Clayton campus.

Zebra fish have become one of the key research models for scientists because of the species' distant genetic connection to humans and their ability to regenerate muscles and organs.

ARMI Deputy Director Professor Peter Currie said the new facility would place Monash at the forefront of regenerative medicine research in Australia and across the world.

"Fossilised fish relics show that humans evolved from fish and at a genetic and developmental level, there are still many similarities," Professor Currie said.

"The zebra fish has become one of the most important model organisms to study biological processes in vivo, allowing us to study how genes control embryonic development.

"This research has the potential to solve some of the questions surrounding human diseases that are couched in genetic make up."

Professor Currie said one of the key areas of research was in determining how muscles grow and develop.

"Zebra fish can not only repair damaged tissue like humans, but they can go far further, regenerating new muscle fibres, such as skin, fins, the heart and in the larval stage, the brain," Professor Currie said.

"The long term research goal is to learn how to help people with muscle wasting disease or who have lost or damaged muscle through injury. Heart attack survivors could also benefit, because their damaged heart muscle could be regenerated."

Zebra fish fast facts

• The tiny tropical fish originated in India's Ganges River and have been introduced into aquariums in Australia, Japan and the United States.
• The fish is named for its five uniform, pigmented, horizontal blue stripes on the side of the body.
• The zebra fish grows to 6.4 cm (2.5 inches) and lives for around five years.
• Female zebra fish produce numerous eggs (up to 500 per spawning) that are relatively large, making it easier for scientists to utilise DNA technologies and compare outcomes from the same clutch.
• Like all fish, a zebra fish embryo develops outside of the mother's body but is uniquely transparent, allowing researchers to see very clearly how the zebra fish grows and develops.
• The pace of development is rapid. A zebra fish completes development of most of its major organ systems within about 24 hours. It takes just 48 hours for the embryo to grow from a single cell to a hatchling. The zebra fish can do in three days what a human embryo does in three months.

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