Zebrafish is one of leading models for studying the embryonic development, for modeling human diseases and for toxicological tests.

This model presents many advantages:

• Very rapid embryonic development (all major organs are formed within 3 days)
• Transparency of the embryos (allowing visual observations of internal structures and non-invasive imaging)
• Short generation time (sexually mature after 3-4 months)
• High fecundity (a single female can lay up to 150 eggs per clutch and per week allowing powerful statistics)
• High genetic homology to humans (about 75% of the human genome has functional homologies with zebrafish)

These characteristics make it an appropriate model for the study of developmental processes, drug discovery and screening, neurosciences and cardiovascular research, wound healing, microbe-host interactions, behavior genetics, toxicology…