On Sept. 9 and 10, the University was home to an annual conference about a field of research that it pioneered.
The 2005 West Coast Zebrafish Meeting had 170 registered attendees, including faculty members, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and select undergraduates.
Attendees came from Canada and Japan, said assistant professor of biology Philip Washbourne, who organized the conference.
“The U of O is perhaps one of the most important places in the world for zebrafish research,” Washbourne said.
During the early 1970s, University biology professor George Streisinger, who died in 1984, began studying zebrafish as a model system for developmental biology.
The fish are ideal for study because they develop quickly. Within 24 hours of fertilization, zebrafish eggs grow to “look like real fish,” Washbourne said.
The embryos are transparent, so a researcher can watch development as it happens.
Streisinger’s widow, Lotte, said her husband had previously worked with bacteria but wanted to work with something bigger and less commonly researched. He became interested in zebrafish, which are usually available at pet stores, through his hobby of owning tropical fish.
Until 1988, the University’s research on zebrafish took place in corrugated metal quonset huts across from the science buildings on Franklin Boulevard. Now, the work takes place in the basement of Huestis Hall.
“He would be amazed,” Lotte Streisinger said, surveying the posters at the zebrafish conference.
Washbourne said one of the main features of the conference was a symposium about cryopreservation of zebrafish sperm. Freezing zebrafish sperm eliminates the need to keep large quantities of fish alive, which can be a problem in research facilities with limited tank space.
Other sessions focused on fish physiology and techniques for fish management. Washbourne mentioned researcher Jennifer Ramsay of Oregon State University, who measured levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, in fish from tanks of various population levels to determine the optimum number of fish per tank.
Washbourne said one type of experiment done on zebrafish involves treating them with chemicals to make their genes mutate.
These techniques allow researchers to see which genes are involved in which physical changes. Washbourne said some zebrafish have been engineered to develop fluorescent proteins.
Similar to common medical procedures for humans in which patients are injected with dyes to make things such as leaky blood vessels and cancerous lymph nodes visible to doctors, fluorescent proteins increase visibility of the zebrafish anatomy.

[email protected]