Ela Knapik

Ela Knapik still remembers the first zebrafish she saw under a microscope—two days old, no bigger than an eyelash, tail wiggling, heart visibly beating. That was more than 20 years ago during her search for a postdoc position. That tiny fish has held her attention ever since and helped unravel many of the biological mysteries she has published about during her professional career. Read More

An international research team has discovered a new genetic syndrome caused by mutation of a single gene and named it CATIFA, an acronym for its core symptoms. Read More

Vanderbilt investigators demonstrate that a certain eye lens protein is evolutionarily conserved between zebrafish and rat, suggesting that zebrafish can be used as a model system to understand eye lens disorders such as cataracts. Read More

A zebrafish model of a rare genetic disease has revealed an unexpected regulatory pathway for cholesterol absorption and processing. Read More

A metabolic enzyme plays a crucial role in vascular development and may be a good target for cancer therapies. Read More

Ela Knapik, associate professor of medicine, and colleagues are using zebrafish to explore the molecular and cellular mechanisms that cause birth defects of the face and skeleton. Read More