Self-healing hearts

How zebrafish regenerate heart muscle cells

03-Mar-2025 - Zebrafish can completely replace damaged heart muscle cells: The affected organ becomes fully functional again. How do they manage this? Researchers at the University of Ulm have discovered that a specific cell-to-cell communication signal helps them to cope better with replication stress. This ...

Deciphering the secrets of spinal cord regeneration protein by protein

"With this understanding, we hope to develop new therapeutic approaches for spinal cord injury in humans in the future"

14-Nov-2023 - Scientists have long sought to understand how certain animals, such as zebrafish, are able to regrow nerve fibers and regain lost motor function after spinal cord injury. In humans, these injuries are irreparable and result in permanent loss of function, such as paralysis. An international team ...

How zebrafish larvae and AI can revolutionise drug discovery

HIPS and CISPA join forces to make future active ingredients safer

17-Feb-2023 - In the ImageTox project, the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) and the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security are pooling their expertise in the fields of drug discovery and artificial intelligence (AI). Using state-of-the-art machine learning methods, the ...

Fish to help in search for MS drugs

Study follows an innovative path in the search for new active substances

22-Sep-2022 - The zebrafish serves as a model organism for researchers around the world: it can be used to study important physiological processes that also take place in a similar form in the human body. It is therefore routinely used in the search for possible active substances against diseases. Researchers ...

Molecular factories: The combination between nature and chemistry is functional

13-Jan-2020 - Researchers at the University of Basel have succeeded in developing molecular factories that mimic nature. To achieve this they loaded artificial organelles inside micrometer-sized natural blisters (vesicles) produced by cells. These molecular factories remain intact even after injection into an ...

"Census" in the zebrafish's brain

Scientists explore newborn, regenerated neurons

09-Jan-2020 - The zebrafish is a master of regeneration: If brain cells are lost due to injury or disease, it can simply reproduce them - contrary to humans where this only happens in the fetal stage. However, the zebrafish is evolutionarily related to humans and, thus, possesses the same brain cell types as ...

Special cells contribute to regenerate the heart in Zebrafish

24-Oct-2019 - It is already known that zebrafish can flexibly regenerate their hearts after injury. An international research group led by Prof. Nadia Mercader of the University of Bern now shows that certain heart muscle cells play a central role in this process. The insights gained could be used to initiate ...

Interactive zebrafish brain

03-Jul-2019 - If zebrafish larvae used the internet, they might soon be able to download a map of their entire brain. "We're not at that point yet", explains Michael Kunst from the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology. "Nevertheless, our first atlas detailing over 2,000 neurons is now available online." As ...

How fish brain cells react to Alzheimer’s disease

25-Apr-2019 - Zebrafish, in contrast to humans, have outstanding regenerative capacities: If brain cells are lost due to illness or injury, they will easily regrow from so-called progenitor cells. With sophisticated methods, researchers from the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) and the ...

Larvae Help in Search for Appetite Suppressants

Zebrafish as a novel testing system for psychoactive substances

02-Nov-2018 - Researchers at the University of Zurich and Harvard University have developed a new strategy in the search for psychoactive drugs. By analyzing the behavior of larval zebrafish, they can filter out substances with unwanted side effects right from the start. This method has resulted in the ...