Mutations in genes that encode components of the centrosome and cilium have been linked to a number of inherited, human developmental diseases: Bardet-Biedl, Alstrom, Joubert and oral-facial-digital syndromes - the 'ciliopathies'; a disease called primary microcephaly in which the size of the brain is reduced; and dwarfism.

My research is aimed at finding and characterising zebrafish embryos depleted of centrosome/centriolar/cilium proteins that give similar phenotypes in order to work out the developmental pathways in which these proteins and organelles are involved. I am particularly interested in proteins that contribute to the generation of cilia in early zebrafish embryos (red lines in Fig. 1A-C) . I use a variety of cell and molecular biology techniques in my research, including (confocal) (immuno)fluorscence microscopy and time-lapse imaging. I work with zebrafish embryos and zebrafish cell lines.

Recent projects have investigated how aggresomes (related to Lewy Bodies of Parkinson's Disease) affect centrosome and cilium function (Iqbal et al., 2020) and how centrosomes are affected in melanoma (Patel et al., 2020). We have also been investigating how zebrafish otolith formation is controlled by a polyketide synthase enzyme (Thiessen et al., 2019).

Figure. Centrosomes and cilia in zebrafish embryos. A) cilia (red) in Küpffer's vesicle (involved in determining left/right asymmetry); B) cilia (red) and basal bodies (green) in the otic vesicle (develops into the fish ear); C) cilia and basal bodies in the pronephros (embryonic kidney); D) centrosomes (green, GFP-centrin) line the apical surface of the neuroepithelium in the diencephalon of the developing 48 h embryonic brain, nuclei labeled red (H2B-RFP). Compass shows orientation: D = dorsal, V = ventral, L = left, R = right.