NIH awards Phylonix phase II SBIR to develop zebrafish models for eye diseases

Advantages of using zebrafish for compound screening

Laboratory animals are critical for defining the mechanisms of drug activity and for testing therapeutic regimens, however, only a few useful models have been developed. Zebrafish has several important advantages for drug screening: they are small, inexpensive to maintain, and easily bred in large numbers. Zebrafish eggs are externally fertilized and a single mating produces 100-200 eggs. Single embryos can be maintained in fluid volumes as small as 100 microliters for the first six days of development and cultured in microtiter wells. Chemicals can then be added directly to the fish water, permeating the intact embryos. Standard microtiter plate readers can be used for quantitation, making this format particularly attractive for high-throughput drug screening.

Phylonix is developing a family of zebrafish assays with compelling advantages: 1) short assay time, 2) single dosing, 3) small amount of drug required for each test, 4) statistically significant numbers of animals can be assayed for each condition, 5) embryos maintenance during drug delivery is easy, and 6) low cost – the estimated cost of each zebrafish assay is less than $100. Chemicals, small molecules, proteins, and nucleic acids such as knock-down reagents can be assessed using the Phylonix zebrafish assays.

About Phylonix

Phylonix, located in Cambridge, MA, is a Contract Research Organization developing and marketing novel in vivo zebrafish-based assays, eZ-ScreensTM, for assessing drug candidates for cancers, central nervous system disorders, cardiovascular diseases, apoptosis, and organ toxicity. The company also offers services for target identification and validation. Partnerships are available for these services as well as for drug repositioning candidates that fail clinical trials for an initial indication. Services are tailored for several industry sectors including agrochemical companies, biotechnology companies, environmental agencies, pharmaceutical companies, and nutraceutical companies as well as general safety liability.

For information on licensing options contact Edward O’Lear, Vice President of Finance and Business Development at or 617-441-6700 ex 302.