The National Institutes of Health and the growth of the zebrafish as an experimental model organism.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency in the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), is a strong advocate of zebrafish and other animal model systems for biomedical and behavior research. In part because of strong funding support from NIH, zebrafish research is now providing fundamental insights into physiology, behavior, and the mechanisms of human disease. Over the past few years, the NIH has established a research infrastructure for the zebrafish community that includes genomic resources and tools for genetic analysis in this system. In addition, the NIH supports community resources such as the Zebrafish International Resource Center (ZIRC) and the Zebrafish Information Network (ZFIN). With the importance of zebrafish research now well-established, NIH will continue to fund a broad array of investigator-initiated studies that focus on issues critical to human health using this model system.