Question

The scientists are using zebrafish as model organism to study ageing base on tissue regeneration and telomere. Compound X and Y are told to be able to decrease the rate of dementia and ageing.

Please make a simple research proposal, clearly state out the hypothesis and tell me 3 objective of it to study ageing.

Answer 1

Research proposal on tissue regeneration and telomeres on zebra fish as model organism:

Aging is the highest and complex process factor for maost of the prevalent human diseases including cancer. Regenerative abilities widely differ among species and aslo the body parts of an individual. Telomeres shortening is thought to play a vital role in premature-aging process and age-related diseases in humans. Link between telomeres and aging is studied extensively by the fact that the genetic related diseases cause telomere deficiency which is associated with pre-mature aging and also cause increased risk factor for cancer.

Model Organism used: Zebra fish (Danio rerio) is chosed for the study due to advantages on experimental manipulation when compared with other vertebrate models and it has emerged as a poerful and complementary model to study the telomere biology - cancer, aging and regeneration studies. Zebra fish has short-telomeres as that of humans which progressively decrease with age reaching lengths in old age is also observed when these telomeres are mutated.

Objective:

1. To explore the advantages of using zebra fish in telomere research and expand knowledge on how telomere reduction leads to cellular aging, organ dysfunction and disease formation.

2. To investigate telomere length, expression and activity on different strains of zebra fish, collected from different stock house to determine any changes during aging and regeneration.

3. To study stress-associated markers observed during aging process in zebra fish.