28.10.2020

The 11th European Zebrafish Society Meeting,  October 26-27, 2020 

The Meeting was supposed to take place at Prague, Czech Republic but because of COVID-19 pandemic it was organised virtually.

The society, which helps put on conference, is the EuFishBioMed. It is a very important society for zebrafish community, since it promote the use of fish in basic research since 2012. EuFishBioMed is a lobby, which works on national and EU level, and takes part in the discussions regarding regulatory affairs.

The president of the EuFishBioMed Stefan Schulte-Merker during the Community Session talked about following Meetings. He mentioned, of course, the Meeting planned at Poland at 2023!

But he also addressed an important issue, which is the FELASA guideline for ZF husbandry. The FELASA is, as I believe, the most influential veterinary society at Europe. In the cooperation with zebrafish community FELASA finally published a paper with husbandry recommendations, containing tips, and guidelines (see the bottom of this text to see citation). Such document with „official stamp of FELASA approval“ would be a very useful for all of us and help in discussion with local veterinarians. Stefan asks us all to cite these guidelines i.e. in “materials and methods” section to promote the document.

During the Community Session also some other important issues, which comes form community comments, were addressed:

- The problem regarding the differences between wild type strains in different laboratories – which accumulate with time,

- Push-back of journal editors –some researches observed that papers are pushed back because of “lack of control studies in mice”. One of proposed solutions was to invite the editors to the table to discuss why zebrafish is a model itself, without additional “control” in mice.

- Food composition – should it be a standardized?

We are all aware that the on-line meetings cannot replace a face-to-face contact, discussions and networking. Despite its limitations the Meeting was very successful. The Petr Bartunek at the final remarks underlined that there were almost 500 participants. Some of the ideas and solutions are worth to use in future. For example the chat active during the speaker presentations turns out to be very useful and effective. The sessions were recorded and available for participants, which was very convenient especially for those who were in different time zone. The most visited sessions were:

- Epigenetics,

- Emerging technologies, and

- Morphogenesis and organogenesis.

Even though everyone missed the gala dinner, the organizers did outstanding job with the preparing the Meeting!

Marta Migocka-Patrzałek

Sources:

    1. Aleström P, D’Angelo L, Midtlyng PJ, et al. Zebrafish: Housing and husbandry recommendations. Laboratory Animals. 2020; 54(3):213-224. doi:10.1177/0023677219869037