‘FishForPharma’ as a model for infectious diseases

The zebrafish is highly promising as a high throughput drug screening model. Dr Annemarie H. Meijer at the Leiden Institute of Biology will receive 3.7 million euro funding from the European Commission to co-ordinate a new Marie Curie Initial Training Network: ‘FishForPharma’. The training network brings together research groups and partners from the Biotech and Pharma sectors.

Developing new medicines

Infectious diseases represent a major threat for world health. The micro-organisms that cause infections have developed strategies during their evolution to by-pass the defence mechanisms of their host. To reduce the burden of infectious diseases it is important to increase our understanding of these host-pathogen interaction mechanisms and to develop more effective strategies for drug discovery.

5-day-old zebrafish larvae with green fluorescent blood vessels and an infection with red fluorescent bacteria, injected using recently developed injection robot. (Photo Ralph Carvalho, PlosOne, 2011)

Studying the zebrafish immune system

A new animal model is currently being used to study pathogens and their host: the zebrafish. Zebrafish embryos have an inborn immune system from the very start of their development. The embryos are transparent, which makes them ideally suited for studying the immune system and disease processes. Leiden University is one of the pioneers in this research.

Absorption of red fluorescent bacteria by green fluorescent labelled immune cells in a zebrafish embryo (Photo Erica Benard)

Testing medicines using robotic systems

Zebrafish embryos can be automatically injected with micro-organisms using a new robotic system. This system makes possible large-scale testing of the behaviour of new medicines against infectious diseases in zebrafish embryos. The Leiden researchers have already demonstrated this with a zebrafish model for tuberculosis in the spin-off company ZF-screens BV, located in the Leiden Bio Sciencepark. ‘FishForPharma’ intends to further refine the technology and expand it to include other infectious diseases.

Five countries

Young researchers who are pioneers in developing zebrafish infection models will be working together with biotech and pharmaceutical companies in this European training network. These companies aim to commercialise zebrafish models for biomedical applications. The “FishForPharma” network will be recruiting 11 PhD candidates and three post-docs in five European countries. The training programme comprises:

individual research projects
an extensive programme of local and network-wide courses and workshops
exchange programmes between the network partners

Network partners

Institute of Biology, Leiden University, The Netherlands – Dr Annemarie H. Meijer (Co-ordinator)
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France – Dr Georges Lutfalla
Wageningen University, The Netherlands – Dr Geert F. Wiegertjes
Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), France – Dr Pierre Boudinot
Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC), Spain – Dr Antonio Figueras
The University of Sheffield, United Kingdom – Dr.Stephen Renshaw
University of Cologne, Germany – Dr Maria Leptin
Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale (INSERM), France – Dr Annette Vergunst
ZF-screens BV, The Netherlands – Dr Ron Dirks
ZF-Biolabs, Spain – Dr Joaquin Guinea
GlaxoSmithKline Tres Cantos Medicines Development Campus, Spain – Dr Luis Ballell (Associate partner)