Caroline Brennan lab

Queen Mary University of London
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  • Welcome to Caroline Brennan lab

    The Zebrafish Neurobiology and Behavioural Genetics group at Queen Mary University of London

    Meet the team
  • Behavioural tests using Zantiks systems

    These are our small, fully integrated and automated units for behavioural tests

    Know more about Zantiks
  • Join us!

    We are always interested in hearing from potential Post doctoral researchers, potential PhD students or Master students

    Contact us

Our research interests:

Behavioural assays

We develop behavioural assays to identify genetic mechanisms in health and disease

Molecular genetics

We undertake CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology to generate null mutant zebrafish lines

Comparative psychology

We study endophenotypes associated with neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders

Imaging analysis

We use transgenic lines and perform staining to relate neural activity and network formation to behaviour

Latest News

Alumni Ari Sudwarts and Alistair Brock launch Nutrition-Tech Start-up

6 Sept 2018

Alumni Ari Sudwarts and Alistair Brock launch Nutrition-Tech Start-up called Shoreditch-son in Okinawa, Japan.

Visit to Giorgio Vallortigara group in Italy

10 July 2018

The Numerosity Group visited collaborators, Giorgio Vallortigara, Andrea Messina and Davide Potrich at the Mind Brain Institute, University of Trente, Italy. A very productive visit but with time for team building.

Zebrafish in a test to assess impulsivity

1 feb 2016

We have developed a three-choice test to assess impulsivity in zebrafish

Our mission and vision

The need to discover and develop safe and effective new medicines is greatest for disorders of the brain. According to the World Health Organisation, CNS disorders will be the greatest medical need of this Century as no CNS disorder is currently treated adequately and the number of people in the world with CNS disease is set to increase sharply in the decades ahead.

Compared to other therapeutic areas, it takes longer to get a CNS drug to clinical settings, and the probability of getting there is lower. There are a number of contributing factors including the staggering complexity of the human brain, which means our knowledge all CNS disorders is largely incomplete, and the cost and difficulty in testing new compounds for effectiveness and safety.

In order to reduce costs and facilitate development of effective therapeutics, new means of assessing brain effects and safety of novel compounds are urgently sought by the pharmaceutical industry. In recent years zebrafish have been found to be a useful species in which to screen for genes and compounds affecting human disease conditions as they share many developmental and disease causing processes.

Zebrafish can contribute to the discovery process by helping to identify genes and processes underlying disease conditions as well as providing a system in which to test for drug effectiveness and safety. Although zebrafish can not replace the use of other animal species entirely, they provide a simple, cost effective system for first round trials and have the potential to increase the rate at which compounds can be brought to market.

Funding and collaboration

QMUL SBCS

Zantiks MarieCurie Leverhume Trust Royal_Society BBSRC HSPF NC3RS NC3RS

School of Biological and Chemical Sciences
Queen Mary University of London
Mile End Campus
London E1 4NS
United Kingdom
+44 (0) 20 7882 6357
c.h.brennan("at" sign)qmul.ac.uk

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