What do I do?

Many have asked and wondered what it is I will be doing while I am here at Harvard. Well hopefully I can explain it a bit here and show you some fun (at least in my opinion) pictures.

I work with zebrafish (Danio rerio is the scientific name). An adult is shown below.

Zebrafish are an excellent tool for studying early development. Here is a quick video from YouTube that shows a time lapse of the first 24 hours after fertilization. The embryos I'll be working with are about 10-14 hours old. So about half way through this video, just when the eye begins to form.

More specifically I work with zebrafish embryos' eyes. I am hoping to understand the role Vitamin A plays in the zebrafish eye development. I use biochemical treatments to alter the Vitamin A production in 12 hour old embryos. I then look at the genes from the eyes at about 14 hours of age and compare untreated animals to treated animals using sophisticated gene microarrays. See below.













The hope is to better understand the genes involved in early eye development associated with Vitamin A. Oh yeah, and did I mention that the fish I'll be working with fluoresce a yellow/green color in the presence of Vitamin A (RA)? (Photo published in Dev. Biol. 2001 229: 89-101)