IZFS Webinars
About | Upcoming Webinars | Previous Webinars | Sponsors | Sponsorship Opportunities
In April 2020, the International Zebrafish Society (IZFS) launched the IZFS Webinar Series. The series includes a variety of research and professional development topics. The content of the webinars is designed for researchers from every career level and to share the latest scientific findings, methods, technologies, and products to facilitate research. The format provides direct access to experts in the field in an interactive online setting.
Webinar registration is free to all IZFS members. Non-members may participate in each webinar for a fee of $25.00 USD. The Franklin-Prasher-Kimmel Webinar series is free to the entire zebrafish community. To register for webinars, please click here. If you have never been a member and would like to join, please click here. If your membership has lapsed and you would like to renew to participate in the webinars, please click here.
Upcoming Webinars
Franklin-Prasher-Kimmel June Webinar
Organized by the Young Researcher Committee (YoRC) European Zebrafish Society (EZS) & International Zebrafish Society (IZFS) and the ZDMS Early Career Investigator (ECI) Committee
Featuring Stefan Choy and Wei Qin
June 25, 2026
10:00am - 11:00am EDT | Find your time here
FREE to the Zebrafish Community!
About the FPK Webinar Series: The Franklin–Prasher–Kimmel (FPK) Webinar Series is a new initiative dedicated to showcasing the work of early-career researchers (PhD students and postdocs) in zebrafish biology. It is inspired by the scientific legacies of Rosalind Franklin, Douglas Prasher, and Charles Kimmel, the series celebrates innovation, rigor, and community in zebrafish research. See the abstract book here!
Identifying the genetic architecture underlying the evolution of stress response in blind Mexican cavefish
Stefan Choy
PhD Student
Lehigh University, USA
Abstract:
Animals perform a variety of behaviors in response to encountering stressful stimuli. Despite the wide range of behaviors, many of the molecules, hormones, and brain regions underlying stress responsiveness are largely conserved across species; however, the genetic factors contributing to the evolution of stress responsiveness and whether certain genetic mechanisms are repeatedly targeted via evolution of similar shifts in response to stress are not well understood. To investigate the genetic basis of the evolution of stress response, we utilize Astyanax mexicanus, the Mexican tetra. A. mexicanus is a small, freshwater fish with multiple, interfertile populations of riverine surface fish and over 35 populations of cavefish. In addition to many common cave-adapted traits like eye degeneration and albinism, multiple A. mexicanus populations have evolved a reduced response to stressors. Here, we quantified stress-associated behaviors in cave-surface F2 hybrids derived from multiple populations of cavefish and performed quantitative trait loci mapping. We identified the genetic architecture underlying the evolved reductions in stress response in A. mexicanus cave populations, as well as candidate genes for evolution of stress responsiveness. Further, we have begun to quantify stress response in surface fish with CRISPR-Cas9 induced mutations in candidate stress responsive genes. Together, these experiments increase our understanding of how complex traits repeatedly evolve, and provide future genetic targets for gene editing to further understand how changes to stress have evolved.
Biography:
I am a 4th-year PhD candidate in the Kowalko lab at Lehigh University. I am broadly interested in the molecular underpinnings that drive differences in behaviors. Currently, I study the genetic of behaviors in Astyanax mexicanus, a fish species that is comprised of surface fish and blind cavefish. After graduate school, I aim to continue in academia as a postdoctoral fellow and ideally continue investigating the mechanisms underlying behavior!
The Umax Platform: A High-Efficiency Base Editing Toolkit for Rapid Functional Assessment of Genetic Variants in Zebrafish
Wei Qin
Research Fellow
Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, USA
Abstract:
Many missense mutations identified in clinical genetic testing are categorized as variants of uncertain significance (VUS), creating a pressing need for systematic functional classification. While CRISPR-mediated base editing offers a precise way to model these variants in vivo, current editors in zebrafish face significant constraints regarding efficiency, PAM compatibility, and unintended bystander mutations. We developed and characterized the "Ultramax" (Umax) suite, a comprehensive family of TadA-derived cytosine (TCBE-Umax) and adenine (ABEUmax) base editors optimized for high-performance zebrafish research. By engineering the TadA deaminase domain and diversifying the Cas9 architecture, we significantly improved editing efficiency and reduced sequence context bias. The Umax suite offers a versatile toolkit with shifted, narrowed, or broadened editing windows and expanded PAM compatibility, while maintaining low rates of indel formation. Notably, these editors achieve efficient biallelic editing in F0 founders, enabling rapid, high-throughput functional assessment of genetic variants without the need for multi-generational breeding. As a proof of concept, we utilized the Umax platform to evaluate 15 VUS linked to hereditary hearing loss, successfully determining their pathogenicity through in vivo phenotypic analysis. Our results demonstrate that the Umax suite provides a powerful and versatile platform for studying genetic variants and accelerating disease modeling in zebrafish.
Biography:
Wei Qin, PhD, is a Research Fellow in the Genes and Human Disease Research Program at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. He is a genome editor and zebrafish geneticist with over 10 years of experience in developing CRISPR-based base editors and in vivo functional genomics platforms for human disease modeling. His research focuses on improving the precision, efficiency, and targeting scope of base editing in zebrafish, including the development of PAM-flexible and TadAderived base editors, as well as rapid F0 platforms for functional evaluation of disease-associated variants.
Dr. Qin has published as first, corresponding, or co-corresponding author in journals including Nature Biomedical Engineering, Nature Communications, Advanced Science, Cell Death and Disease, and BMC Biology, and has led or contributed to multiple funded projects in genome editing and rare disease research.
Previous Webinars
For a complete list of our archived webinars, please click here
Current members may access the recorded webinars by logging into the "members-only" portal
Webinar Sponsorship Opportunities
This educational format provides a unique opportunity for potential sponsors to connect with the most influential group of fish researchers in a virtual setting. The content of the webinars is designed to attract researchers from every career level and to share the latest scientific findings, methods, technologies and products to facilitate their research work. With this virtual format, sponsors not only have exposure to attendees accessing the live webinars, but additional exposure and continued visibility as webinars are archived on the IZFS website and available to members to view on demand.
Explore the Sponsorship Opportunities Here
Please reach out to Alyssa Gluth at agluth@izfs.org with any questions.