Zebrafish among the innovations NCCU uses in studying diseases: Biomedical and Biotechnology Research Institute also calls on drama to try to eliminate health-care disparities among minorities.

Innovation is taking center stage at North Carolina Central University's Julius L. Chambers Biomedical and Biotechnology Research Institute through the use of zebrafish in research and drama-based health education initiatives. NCCU is one of the first universities in the state to fully integrate the freshwater fish, originally found in the Ganges River in eastern India, in its research.

The institute also has found an effective way to educate the public about preventive health care through dramatic productions. "We have always sought new and innovative ways of carrying out our mission," says Ken Harewood, director of the BBRI. "We believe that our innovative approach is the impetus for our success. We are investigating health disparities in minorities at every level of inquiry, from genetics to lifestyle, from social learning to education to health-care services."

Institute scientists Dr. Gregory Cole, Dr. Pradeep K. Chatterjee, Dr. David Tulis, and Dr. Ju-Ahng Lee are a part of the team using zebrafish. "There are quite a few advantages of using zebrafish versus rodents," Cole says. "Zebrafish are very inexpensive to maintain, embryos are transparent, which makes it possible to watch the development of their nervous system in living animals as it is happening, and their embryos are developed outside the mother's body, which makes it easy to access. A rodent's embryo develops inside the mother; therefore, you would have to use an invasive procedure to conduct experiments on such an embryo."

NCCU has a special laboratory that houses more than 10 aquariums of zebrafish. Although no single organism is perfect, zebrafish have features that make them easy to maintain, manipulate and observe in a laboratory. Zebrafish are vertebrates, which means they are closely related to humans in many of their biological and genetic traits, developmental processes, anatomy, physiology and behaviors.

Tulis, an assistant professor in the BBRI, uses the zebrafish in his research to examine the genetic aspects of cardiovascular disease, which is the No. 1 cause of death for African-Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanic Americans. "In zebrafish, one can visibly see the development of the blood vessel, the heart and the nervous system in a short period of time," Tulis says. "A zebrafish can develop from an embryo to adulthood in a matter of months. You can conduct research on a single cell in a zebrafish one day, put it back in the aquarium and continue your...