Research Focus
Our lab utilizes the zebrafish model system and cutting-edge technologies to study the role of gene expression in hematopoiesis, cancer, and stem cell development. We aspire to develop and improve drug therapies and treatments for patients with blood disorders and melanoma. Our lab is based in two physical locations: Boston Children’s Hospital (Longwood Medical Area in Boston) and Harvard University (Cambridge).
Hematopoiesis
These red blood cells bear color tags made from random combinations of red, green and blue fluorescent proteins. Same-color cells originate from the same blood stem cell (Nature Cell Biology 2016, Henninger et al).
Each day, humans require the production of ~100 billion new blood cells for proper hematopoietic function. Hematopoiesis is well conserved in the zebrafish, which is a wonderful system for studying this process. Zebrafish lay hundreds of embryos a week, develop red blood cells within 24 hours, and are transparent, which means that we can observe the blood cells as they develop and differentiate. We study how hematopoietic progenitor cells are induced from vascular precursors, how hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) engraft into their stem cell niche, what genes controls stem cell self-renewal and differentiation, what goes awry in blood diseases & blood cancers, and how to improve treatments for patients with such disorders.
Melanoma
The Casper mutant zebrafish offers the advantage of relative transparency throughout adulthood, adding a powerful tool to understand how melanoma tumor cells metastasize and spread. (Courtesy of Maurizio Fazio)
The Zon Lab created the first animal model of a BRAF-driven cancer in 2005 with the publication of our Tg(mitf:BRAFV600E);p53-/- zebrafish melanoma model. Our lab has gone on to identify genes important in melanoma initiation such as SPRED1 and SETDB1. We study epigenetic regulators of melanoma onset, molecular events in melanoma initiation, and the dynamic cell states during the development of drug resistance in melanoma.