Research Using a Little Fish for Solving Big Health Problems

May 3, 2017 Diabetes. Obesity. Cancer. Chronic diseases are taking their toll on the world’s population, and their threat is rising. The instinct to accelerate research with a laser focus on finding treatments to halt these diseases in their tracks is shared by researchers, physicians, patients and the general public; but the race to the cure is not always the path to transformative discoveries. Basic understanding of the cellular, genetic, epigenetic and physiological processes that underlie all diseases is the primary way to figure out what has gone wrong. Using the model system, zebrafish, our work is uncovering the fundamental processes that give rise to metabolic disease and cancer in the liver. This lecture discusses how a focus on basic research paired with efforts to encourage creativity and zeal in research opens new insights into biology and disease, and includes a discussion of how mentoring, empowering non-typical researchers, and openness to ideas inspires novel solutions. Kirsten Sadler Associate Professor of Biology, NYUAD