Máté VargaSecond in the “unsung heroes of zebrafish research” series is Canadian born Kenichi Kenneth Hisaoka. We might consider him the “grandfather” of zebrafish toxicology, and also the author of the best pre-Kimmel “developmental series” table.
His involvement in toxicology was not by chance: he completed his MSc in the University of Western Ontario, where he was tutored by Hellen Battle - the legendary fish embryologist, educator and feminist (https://www.uwo.ca/biology//news-and-events/events/seminars-and-talks/dr-helen-battle-biography.html). Shout-out to DFO-MPO for this badass picture of Battle: www.instagram.com/p/DAqidOtvsEM/. (2/8)
Battle’s and Hisaoka’s first paper, "Effects of ethyl carbamate (urethan) on the early development of the teleost Brachydanio rerio” is from 1952 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14925939/), and in the Acknowledgements they credit Monte Moore, founder of Moore Water Gardens, providing the adult zfish. moorewatergardens.com/about-us/. (3/8)
In 1953 Hisaoka received his PhD from Rutgers and he got a job at Loyola, but initially was barred based on the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act_of_1952) to enter the US, and needed to get a special exemption to take up his position. (4/8)
At Loyola he continued his work on toxicology and teratology (https://openalex.org/works?page=1&filter=authorships.author.id:a5008457200) , but for this he also needed a more detailed developmental table, covering somitogenesis stages, so he published one with Battle, using phase contrast microscopy. (5/8)
He also made a movie of the developmental process, together with John Ott, a pioneer of time-lapse imaging (but sadly, this movie cannot be found in the Loyola Archives). (6/8)
In 1963 Hisaoka left academia to become an NIH Grants Associate. Soon he was the assoc. director for the NIDR Extramural Program, and then became head of the NINCDS Extramural Program. He was also a Judo expert, member of the US Judo Federation. Sadly, he died in 1978, at the age of 53, in cancer. (7/8)
One more achievement for Hisaoka: as far as I could tell, he was amongst the first to suggest the use of breeding tanks to collect zebrafish eggs in his "Further Studies on the Embryonic Development of the Zebrafish, Brachydanio rerio (Hamilton-Buchanan)” paper from 1960 (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jmor.1051070206). (8/8)