Due to their unique physical, chemical, and magnetic properties, nanomaterials have great potential for industrial development. There is a pressing need to develop rapid whole animal-based testing assays to assess the potential toxicity of engineered nanomaterials. To meet this challenge the embryonic zebrafish model was employed to determine the toxicity...
The field of nanotechnology has been rapidly developing new materials. These materials have become incorporated into consumer products and the environment after only minimal assessment of their effects on human health or the environment. The toxicity of these new nanomaterials remains unknown due to the unpredictable nature of the core...
Incorporation of nanoparticles (NPs) into consumer products is on the rise and human exposure to NPs is unavoidable. Currently, there is insufficient data to assess the safety of nanoparticles. I conducted a series of five studies using the zebrafish model to determine which NP components (i.e., core material or surface...
Billions of pounds of bisphenol A (BPA) are produced annually around the globe for the manufacture of numerous consumer products, including polycarbonate food and water containers, the protective resin linings of food cans, thermal printing paper, and dental fillings. BPA exposure during nervous system development has been associated with learning...
Laboratories around the world are using the zebrafish model for biomedical research and conducting investigations using morphological, physiological, behavioral, and genomic endpoints. All assays provide information, but physiological and behavioral endpoints or phenotypes are a fast way to understand how an animal is responding to its environment. We investigate the...
Since its inception as a laboratory animal in the early 1970s, the zebrafish has proven itself a rising star in the world of comparative biomedical sciences due to its short generation time, ease of care, external fertilization, and transparent larvae. In a very few decades, the zebrafish has been utilized...
Auditory defects and disorders are prevalent at all ages and affect 8% of the population in developed nations including newborns and children. Congenital hearing loss is the most common birth defect and it is estimated that 1 in 1000 children are affected by deafness at birth or before the onset...
There are more than 87,000 chemicals in current use with little to no toxicity information available. Assessing such a large number of chemicals using traditional methods would take an unreasonable amount of time and money, and require the use a large number of animals. The incorporation of high-throughput in vivo...
A fundamental difference between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells is the presence of membrane bound organelles in eukaryotes. The dynamics of membrane trafficking within the cell are responsible for everything from intercellular communication and cell homeostasis, to mitosis, cell migration, and differentiation. These processes require exocytosis and compensatory endocytosis, often working...
Assessing the risk from exposure to a chemical mixture in the environment can seem prohibitively challenging. Most components of the mixture are not readily identifiable, chemicals may interact to cause other-than-additive toxicity, and the number of potential combinations of environmental contaminants is enormous. These challenges can make it seem impossible...