Fishing for answers to DBAFishing for answers to DBADR BETH PAYNE

Who am I?

• Haematology Consultant at University College London Hospital/Research at UCL CI

Why am I here

• Trained in Haematology in Glasgow and London• 2006 went to Harvard Medical School in Boston,

USA• Became interested in studying DBA

Researching what goes wrong in DBA – WHAT DO WE KNOW?

• Red blood cells die prematurely

Researching what goes wrong in DBA – WHAT DO WE KNOW?

•Mistakes or absence one copy of a group of genes•These genes code for ribosomal proteins

US National library of Medicine

Researching what goes wrong in DBA – WHAT WOULD WE LIKE TO KNOW?

•Since ribosomes are needed in all cells, why does DBA only cause problems with red blood cells?

•Can we use research to help us find new treatments ?

How to answer our questions?

• Patients and their families are the greatest teachers

• Some experiments cannot be done on patients so we need to learn more using other laboratory models

Zebrafish

Why do we use zebrafish?Why do we use zebrafish?

RO Karlstrom and DA Kane A flipbook of zebrafish embryogenesis Development (1996) 123:461

Why do we use zebrafish?Why do we use zebrafish?

2mm

Why do we use zebrafish?Why do we use zebrafish?

Zebrafish Embryo stained for Haemoglobin at 4 days

Effects of Leucine in DBA zebrafish

Growth of DBA zebrafish with leucine

Ongoing projects – using DBA zebrafish to find new drugs for DBA

Assess candidate compounds in primary cells

Use Red fluorescent DBA zebrafish

AcknowledgementsUCL

Maria Virgilio

Greg Pietka

Youngrock Joung

Tariq Enver

Steve Wilson

David Linch

St Marys/Imperial College

Josu De La Fuente

DFCI/Harvard Medical School USA

Tom Look

Evisa Gjini

Ujwal Pyati

Hong Sun

Arati Khanna-Gupta

Nancy Berliner

Anu Narla

Ben Ebert

DBA Patients and families!!!