Zebrafish facility at UC to study the effect of pollution on human reproductive health

CINCINNATI (WXIX) - The University of Cincinnati College of Medicine is now home to a new zebrafish research facility.

Researchers will use zebrafish to study how environmental pollutants affect human reproductive health.

Inside the facility are 750 tanks that can store up to 7,000 zebrafish. The facility is partially funded by a grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

Michelle Kossack, PhD, an assistant professor for the University of Cincinnati’s Department of Environmental and Public Health Sciences, will use zebrafish to study how dioxin affects reproductive health and infertility in humans on a large scale.

“This compound is known to affect many different organ systems,” Kossack said. “It’s known as a carcinogen. It’s known to cause developmental defects. And we know that it’s able to reduce female fertility. My grant is looking at how that happens and how, on a population level, we might be reducing fertility.”

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Kossack says dioxin is widespread and that people can be exposed to it in many ways. She says we are born with it already in our bodies.

“Dioxin is a byproduct of many industrial processes we have, like burning of waste, burning of fossil fuels, production of paper, and it’s even made naturally in forest fire smoke,” said Kossack.

Zebrafish can live up to 5 years in captivity. Because they share similar genes to humans, researchers use zebrafish as models for human health.

This way, they are able to study the long-term effects of dioxin in a shorter period of time.

“We’re able to study what happens to these different organ systems in a much more simple model in this fish and then apply it to the human because they have the same cells and the same signaling pathways occurring,” Kossack said.

Kossack hopes the new zebrafish research facility will be a resource for University of Cincinnati students and the community. Those who wish to learn more can visit her UC profile here.

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