Randall T. Peterson

TL;DR: It is shown that the CRISPR-Cas system functions in vivo to induce targeted genetic modifications in zebrafish embryos with efficiencies similar to those obtained using zinc finger nucleases and transcription activator-like effector nucleases.

TL;DR: By combining the scale and throughput of in vitro screens with the physiological complexity of animal studies, the zebrafish promises to contribute to several aspects of the drug development process, including target identification, disease modelling, lead discovery and toxicology.

TL;DR: The first known small-molecule inhibitor of BMP signaling-dorsomorphin is described, which was identified in a screen for compounds that perturb dorsoventral axis formation in zebrafish and found that dorsomorphin selectively inhibits the BMP type I receptors ALK2, ALK3 and ALK6 and thus blocks BMP-mediated SMAD1/5/8 phosphorylation, target gene transcription and osteogenic differentiation.

TL;DR: The zebrafish has become a prominent vertebrate model for disease and has already contributed to several examples of successful phenotype-based drug discovery, but for it to become useful in drug development more broadly, key hurdles must be overcome.

TL;DR: The development and application of a high-throughput, quantitative screen for drugs that alter the behavior of larval zebrafish are reported and it is found that the multidimensional nature of observed phenotypes enabled the hierarchical clustering of molecules according to shared behaviors.