( can help with tracing why humans develo...)Glow-in-the-dark zebrafish at UH hold keys to biological clocks

Per3 is the naturally occurring clock-regulated gene. The protein that it encodes is produced at highest levels near dawn, and when the luc gene is inserted into it, the luciferase protein is produced in a similar way. The result is that these fish glow rhythmically, emitting more light during the day than during the night. The amount of light is below the level of detection by the human eye, but it is easily measured with an instrument called a luminometer.

"This has given us the tool we need to find other parts of systems that influence biological clocks," Cahill said. "We are optimistic that this will shed light upon such things as reproduction in other light-dependent animals."

These findings have laid the groundwork for further study along these lines. With a team now built, UH graduate students who assisted with this project are now trained to work with Cahill to implement the next steps of this research.

Prior to coming to UH in 1994, Cahill was a research assistant professor in the Department of Anatomy and Cell biology at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City and received his postdoctoral training at Emory University. He received his doctorate in biology and neuroscience from the University of Oregon in Eugene, where he studied the mechanisms of circadian responses to light. He graduated with his bachelor of science from the College of Biological Sciences at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis/St. Paul. His research interests include molecular, cellular and physiological mechanisms of vertebrate circadian rhythmicity, photoreceptor cell and molecular biology, and neurobiology. He is a member of the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms and the Society for Neuroscience and is currently funded under a $1.2 million National Institutes of Health grant through 2007 as the principal investigator
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Source:University of Houston