{"id":60936,"date":"2013-01-17T13:07:54","date_gmt":"2013-01-17T18:07:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=60936"},"modified":"2017-11-03T14:27:44","modified_gmt":"2017-11-03T18:27:44","slug":"sun-journal-profiles-bio-professor-williams-and-her-zeal-for-zebrafish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2013\/01\/17\/sun-journal-profiles-bio-professor-williams-and-her-zeal-for-zebrafish\/","title":{"rendered":"Sun Journal profiles bio professor Williams and her zeal for zebrafish"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sun Journal<\/em> reporter and photographer Amber Waterwan profiles one of the college’s newest faculty members, Larissa Williams.<\/p>\n

She’s an aquatic toxicologist whose research interests include zebrafish, a familiar denizen of the family aquarium.<\/p>\n

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The freshwater zebrafish are valuable research specimens because they share a number of genes with humans.<\/p><\/div>\n

An assistant professor of biology, Williams tells the Sun Journal<\/em> <\/a><\/strong>that since zebrafish share similar genes with humans, the tiny species can help researchers in their search for clues about human diseases or afflictions.<\/p>\n

For example, when one zebrafish gene is “knocked out,” or made inoperable, “the swim bladder does not inflate,” Williams tells Waterman. “In terms of human health, a lot of the same things that contribute to the swim bladder are analogous to our lungs.”<\/p>\n