HÜDHAM Zebrafish Research Laboratory (HUZF) was established in 2015 within the Laboratory Animals Research and Application Center with the support of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK, 214S174 to Pervin Dinçer) and improved with another project by Hacettepe University Scientific Research Projects Coordination Unit (HÜBAP, TAY-2017-12735 to Pervin Dinçer) focusing on the development of the existing technological infrastructure in order to create different mutations (point mutations, large insertions and deletions etc.) in different genes to mimic rare diseases in zebrafish with CRISPR-Cas9 technology. And finally, the technical infrastructure for drug screening was developed with the support of HÜBAP, TYL-2018-17472. HUZF is the first laboratory in Turkey using CRISPR-Cas9 for rare disease modeling in zebrafish.

The primary goals of the HUZF are:

• Creating zebrafish models of rare diseases via CRISPR-Cas and identifying the underlying pathology.
• Using these models developing preclinical therapy approaches and large scale drug screening, discovery, and development

The laboratory has legal and ethical permission from the Republic of Turkey Ministry of Food, Agriculture, and Livestock for breeding, supply, and generating transgenic zebrafish lines. Our research is continuing in accordance with the 4R rule for animal welfare and the Fish Embryo Toxicity (FET) Test in the Chemical Tests Guide of the OECD.

The infrastructure holds three separate tank systems for housing adult zebrafish. For newly arrived fish there is a separate quarantine unit and a nursery for larva. 1500 adult fish can be housed at full capacity. Continuity of mutant fish stocks is ensured by sperm freezing and in vitro fertilization.

This facility aims to help researchers to address their questions using zebrafish model.