00:00 You're probably familiar with guinea pigs as a traditional experiment subject,
00:03 but they're not the only animal used that way.
00:06 This facility at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden breeds zebrafish.
00:10 They're used in experiments to study all sorts of medical issues.
00:13 News reports from just within the last month cite zebrafish as having been used
00:17 in efforts to learn more about norovirus, fertility loss, and even anxiety.
00:22 The zebrafish core facility's scientific director, Lars Brødegam,
00:25 says the fish are useful because of their genetic makeup.
00:28 If you mutate genes in zebrafish, the phenotype, how the zebrafish looks like,
00:33 resembles very closely to patients that have the same mutations.
00:37 And then people realize that the genetic environment of the zebrafish and the patients is the same.
00:43 They also develop quickly and are transparent when young, which makes them easier to study.
00:48 The facility provides the fish to its parent institute as well as external customers.
00:52 And this practice may be spreading.
00:53 In September, Oregon State University announced plans to modernize its own zebrafish laboratory.
