5 July 2017

The 9th Zebrafish Disease Models Meeting in Singapore was held with the aims of promoting zebrafish as a model system for the analysis of human disease mechanisms amongst the scientific community in Asia, bringing together those already engaged in zebrafish research, and exchanging ideas, methodologies and new findings. A total of 271 delegates from 25 countries attended the series of plenary and concurrent sessions. Thanks to support from The Company of Biologists, organisers were able to provide travel awards to 28 early-career attendees from a number of countries including Bangladesh, Chile, Malaysia, Singapore and the UK.

The sessions covered a range of diseases and disease-related topics with keynote lectures delivered by Prof Stuart Cook (Duke–NUS Medical School) on ‘The genetics of cardiovascular disease’ and Prof John Mattick (Garvan Institute of Medical Research) on ‘The RNA world’.

The atmosphere at the meeting was one of open and friendly interaction, with a palpable sense of energy and excitement engendered by the high quality of both the oral and poster presentations. The international makeup of the attendees was a major contributor to the success of the meeting and as over half of the delegates were from Asia and Australasia, the meeting realised its aim of extending the reach of the zebrafish disease models community beyond its traditional base in Europe and North America.