Zebrafish is an emerging animal model. It is a powerful tool for biomedical research from preclinical or toxicological testing to aquaculture. Xenotransplantation, toxicological studies, and genome editing with CRISP/Cas9 technology are our main research areas, which are based on this in vivo model and its numerous advantages.
Additionally our group offer custom research and assay services in support of drug (compounds or nanosystems) and device discovery and development. We can carry out several laboratory assays to study toxicity, safety, and efficacy (uptake and xenograft studies) using a zebrafish model. We have advanced technology in confocal microscopy to perform studies in depth, 3D and real-time. On the other hand, we also offer toxicogenomics studies by qPCR and microarrays. Let us take the hassle out of your hands with a custom solution for you.
Our group carries out assays of toxicity of different types of compounds (especially nanoparticles) in zebrafish embryos and larvae. We do uptake and biodistribution studies in real-time and also toxicogenomic studies.
In this area we are interest in the study of the genetic basis of several traits of interest in aquaculture (sex determination, disease resistance and growth), parentage analysis and genomic methodologies in genetic breeding programs. Our research has been mainly focused on aquatic organisms. We have largely involved in technology transfer both to administration agencies related with conservation genetics and to aquaculture companies. The development of genomic tools for evolutionary studies and their application to aquaculture, such as genetic maps and oligo-microarrays to identify candidate genes related with productive characters constitute one of our main interest.
Zebrafish embryos have been used to perform xenografts for modeling human cancer since 2006 due to his lack of immune system, transparency of their bodies and low maintenance cost. Xenotransplantation consists basically on injecting cells from one donor organism to another different organism. In our case, we have focused our efforts on the field of the molecular medicine and we work injecting human cancer cells in the zebrafish embryos. This technique allows us to test the behavior of the injected cells (all kinds of cell lines, cancer stem cells…) inside the yolk of the zebrafish embryos and, apart from that, test different chemotherapeutic compounds to find out what is the effect of those drugs upon the injected cells in a short period of time.
Impossible is nothing with this technology, only your imagination and ethical standards set the limit. CRISPR/Cas9 allows you to modify the genome exactly where and how you want, with only two reagents: Cas9 and gRNAs. Now, molecular surgery is possible!
