Modernization of Zebrafish Core Facility

PROJECT ABSTRACT: Modernization of Zebrafish Core Facility The Zebrafish Core Facility at Albert Einstein College of Medicine (Einstein) provides investigators access to utilize zebrafish as an in vivo model for a variety of applications such as disease modeling, drug testing and screening, and whole organism intravital imaging. The facility currently offers services to maintain established transgenic and mutant zebrafish lines, provide 100’s of embryos per week, and to rapidly produce new transgenic or mutant animal strains. The first aquatic system of the facility housed was established in 2001 and is still in usage today. Much has changed in zebrafish maintenance and husbandry standards in the field. Thus, we have identified a major need to upgrade this aging system. We plan to update to a state-of-the-art life support system with pH, conductivity, and total dissolved gas monitoring and dosing systems, rotating microscreen drum filter and centralized sump, and new tanks with locking lids to prevent escaping zebrafish. In addition, zebrafish research programs have significantly expanded and diversified since 2001. Our current facility is poorly outfitted to expand into some of these new scientific directions. We have identified a need to provide Einstein researchers with access to technological advances to enable them to enrich their research programs in a variety of directions. The proposed addition of three stand-alone housing systems that permit environmental modifications unique to each housing system will provide added flexibility for new experimental approaches. For example, using zebrafish as personalized avatars for human cancer cell xenografts will allow rapid in vivo drug screening to identify tumor-specific vulnerabilities. Other examples are the exploration of how different diets impact immune responses and cancer growth or in vivo toxicology. The three new stand-alone systems with customized tanks and environmental controls proposed in the application will allow the facility users to perform these specialized experiments without impacting the larger breeding zebrafish colony housed in the main system. These advances will greatly expand the services available to Einstein zebrafish users.