Drew Latimer, Justin Reno, Brandon Kirby and Norio Takada

Remyelination is necessary to restore neural function following disease or injury. We are attempting to develop zebrafish as a model system to identify genes and drugs that can promote formation of new oligodendrocytes. In one line of experiments we are using a laser to ablate oligodendrocytes and observing the response of neighboring oligodendrocyte lineage cells by time lapse imaging. In a second line of experiments, we are screening large libraries of small molecular weight compounds for drugs that promote formation of excess oligodendrocytes in zebrafish embryos and larvae.