Zebrafish

• BAR HARBOR, Maine, March 1, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Associate Professor Ron Korstanje, Ph.D., has been named the Evnin Family Chair at The Jackson Laboratory.
• "His appointment as the Evnin Family Chair bolsters our commitment to understanding the most complex health challenges of our time.
• I'm grateful to him, and to the Evnin family for their support in helping us recruit and retain top scientists."
• After returning to JAX in 2007 as a research scientist in Paigen's laboratory, he advanced to the rank of associate professor in 2019.

• Enrollment is set to begin in mid-2024 at 20 sites across Canada and will include a total of 120 participants who will be randomized in a 1:1 ratio.
• The TaRGET trial is a critical first step in evaluating this potential."
• This scarring increases the risk of dangerously fast heart rhythms that can lead to sudden cardiac death (SCD).
• An implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) is recommended for prevention of SCD for ACM patients considered at high risk for SCD.

• NEW YORK, Dec. 13, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- A protein that helps generate the force needed for single cells to move works differently in cells moving in groups, a new study shows.
• Zebrafish are a major model in the study of development because they are transparent and share cellular mechanisms with humans.
• The current study found that the cells in the primordium instead activate RhoA in pulses in the front of the cells where it does two jobs.
• "The machinery suggests that the movement of single cells and groups of cells is similar, but that RhoA contributes to that machinery differently in each case.

• Japan’s decision to release water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant has been greeted with horror by the local fishing industry as well as China and several Pacific Island states.
• China – which together with Hong Kong imports more than US$1.1bn (£866m) of seafood from Japan every year – has slapped a ban on all seafood imports from Japan, citing health concerns.
• Japan remains steadfast in its assurance that the water is safe.

Contaminated water

• Since the accident, water has been used to cool the damaged reactors.
• But, as the reactor core contains numerous radioactive elements, including ruthenium, uranium, plutonium, strontium, caesium and tritium, the cooling water has become contaminated.
• Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen that forms water molecules with properties similar to regular water.
• To safely store the water that will continue to be contaminated over that time (some 100 tonnes of water each day), the plant’s operators will need to construct an additional 2,700 storage tanks.

Should we be concerned?

• However, much of this research has focused on organisms such as zebrafish and marine mussels.
• Interestingly, the zebrafish were exposed to tritium concentrations similar to those estimated to be in the storage tanks at Fukushima.
• Marine organisms within the discharge zone will experience consistent exposure to this low concentration over the next 30 years.

But that’s not everything

• The amount of tritium used in this study was over 3,000 times less than that used in the French study.
• But it still exceeded the levels being discharged into the Pacific Ocean from Fukushima by almost 250 times.