Moss, Jennifer Barnett

We utilize zebrafish as a system for studying diseases of the pancreas, including diabetes and cancer. Our approach is to identify intrinsic and extrinsic patterning of the gut during development and the genetic pathways that lead to the establishment of insulin-secreting islet cells. In addition to establishing transgenic models, such as the insulin-GFP fish in the image, we now routinely generate fluorescent protein-recombined genomic clones as transgenes to study pancreas development in vivo. Our goal is to characterize regenerating zebrafish beta cells and eventually translate their genetic potential into the production of human islets.