Zebrafish are an excellent model for biomedical research and their role in drug screening is well established.
The OZF's toxicological testing unit allows research teams to cost-effectively incorporate drug-screening into their research, thereby progressing work a step closer towards possible clinical trialling and commercialisation.
The facility is also suitable for environmental research—particularly that of waterways—enabling the effects of contaminants on aquatic life to be quantified.
The toxicology unit is a stand-alone system consisting of thirty 3.5 litre tanks. Unlike the Otago Zebrafish Facility's other zebrafish aquarium systems, water in the toxicology unit does not recirculate through all of the system's tanks.
Instead, water flows through each individual tank—based on user-defined parameters—and is dumped to waste.
In this way, tanks can be treated independently with drugs or bioactive compounds without risk of cross-contamination.