Zebrafish: Potential Savior of Mankind?
Heart failure is the most prominent cause of death worldwide, affecting every gender, race, and socioeconomic status. It has been fought by physicians for decades, but has proven itself time and time again to be an awfully stubborn disease. Since the more traditional research couldn’t do the trick, recent efforts into finding a cure for heart disease have employed a more out-of-the-box strategy.
In fact, they went so far as to delve into the shallow depths of East-Indian rivers in search of the zebrafish, a small minnow-like creature with an exceptionally large impact within the scientific community. Known for its impressive regenerative power, the zebrafish has been used as the basis for dozens of genetics research studies, specifically in the realm of stem cells and nerve regeneration. However, as heart disease has continued to rise in mortality rates worldwide, recent focus on heart cell regeneration has skyrocketed.
The issue with us humans is that when we damage a major organ or muscle, we generally can’t grow it back, at least not as well as we’d like to. Therefore, when our hearts start to wear down and arteries get seriously impaired, there’s not much that can be done to reverse the damage. Zebrafish are a totally different story. If one of these fish experiences major damage to their heart, it will repair itself within a matter of weeks! With this knowledge, the British Heart Foundation set off to fund a research project with the sole intent to understand the secret behind zebrafish cell regeneration, and how to apply this process to human hearts.
Dr. Jana Koth, a leading researcher at the University of Oxford, has been tasked with creating intricate images of zebrafish hearts during their development in order to map out how they are formed. Early in the life cycle, zebrafish are actually transparent, as in you can literally see straight through their skin and watch their beating heart as it continues to grow. This makes it extremely easy for Koth to make initial conclusions about early development of heart cells and how they are able to combat serious damage. By placing intentional lesions in various coronary arteries of these fish hearts, her team can then observe (in a relatively short period of time, too) how the zebrafish regenerative cells arrange themselves in order to repair the damage.
This research is still very early in terms of actual clinical application with human subjects, but the implications are vast. If we could narrow down a cure for heart disease by rewiring our hearts to be able to fix themselves, we could literally save millions of lives every year. These findings could potentially save the world from its most devastating disease.
Way to go, zebrafish.
