St. Michael’s Hospital is home to the first automated high-throughput zebrafish screening facility in Canada. Zebrafish are undergoing a technological revolution in genome editing for functional genomic studies, mutagenesis to develop disease models, and high throughput screens in drug discovery. In neuroscience, massive research efforts in developing new drugs and therapies for the two most prevalent neurodegenerative diseases, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, have yet to produce a cure. Novel research strategies are urgently needed to expand the knowledge of brain disease mechanisms and accelerate drug discovery.
Supported by the well-equipped St. Michael’s Hospital Zebrafish Core, the Zebrafish Neuroscience Collaborative (ZNC) synergizes our efforts to produce high impact research and discoveries. This common research goal has brought together both local and international scientists in a collaborative effort to develop a wide spectrum of zebrafish neural models to study disease mechanisms and repurpose existing drugs. The research areas include Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, amyotropic lateral sclerosis, epilepsy, stroke, traumatic brain injury, retinal degeneration and neural regeneration.
| Xiao-Yan Wen Chair, ZNC
Director, Zebrafish Centre for
Advanced Drug Discovery | Tom Schweizer Director
Neuroscience Research Program
St. Michael's Hospital | Jonathan Brotchie Senior Scientist
Neuroscience Division
Toronto Western Research Institute |
| R. Loch Macdonald Division Head
Neurosurgery
St. Michael's Hospital | Janice Robertson Associate Professor
Lab Medicine and Pathobiology
University of Toronto | Vince Tropepe Associate Professor
Cell & Systems Biology
University of Toronto |
| Georg Zoidl Professor
Department of Psychology
York University | Andrew Baker Director
Brain Injury Laboratory
St. Michael's Hospital | Pierre Drapeau Department Chair
Pathologie & Biologie Cellulaire
Universite de Montreal |
