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 |
