Máté Varga

@[email protected]
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130 Following
339 Posts
Developmental geneticist by training, science-blogger by choice. Interested in all things #zebrafish, #devbio and #scicomm.
CriticalBiomass (HU)https://criticalbiomass.hu
Articles at Qubit (HU)https://qubit.hu/author/dolphin
Show threadMáté VargaJan 5
What is even more remarkable, this might be also the paper with the first documented experiment on fin (albeit anal fin) regeneration (discussed in the context of pattern re-formation). See below at 13 and 16 dpi. (7/9)
Show threadMáté VargaJan 5
I could not find the original Schreitmüller descriptions, but as for the D. rerio x D. albolineatus, we can always rely on earlier work from
@dparichy.bsky.social, where these patterns have been described in detail (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s004270100155). (4/9)
Show threadMáté VargaJan 5
Briefly discussing crosses by various aquarists, Goodrich credits Wilhelm Schreitmüller (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Schreitmüller) in describing “Danio rerio" x "D. albolineatus" and “Brachydanio rerio" x “Danio malabaricus" crosses. (3/9)
Máté VargaJan 5
We usually credit Charles W. Creaser with the first scientific zebrafish paper, but that is true only with some caveats. Meet another strong contender, Hubert B. Goodrich of Wesleyan University, interested in all things related to fish genetics. (Photo: Smithsonian, https://prod.learninglab.si.edu/resources/view/1828290) (1/9)
Show threadMáté VargaJan 4
Yet, in the same year (while still at Yale) she did publish an abstract in Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol. Med. about a transplantation experiment about which I was always dreaming as a PhD student (not knowing that it was done 70 years prior): putting a fish organizer into a newt embryo. (3/4)
Máté VargaJan 4
Next, in my miniseries on early researchers using zebrafish is Jane M. Oppenheimer (https://www.sdbonline.org/sites/archive/sdbmembership/oppenheimer.html), fish embryologist and science historian par excellence. (True, I’m cheating here a bit, but if I mentioned Hellen Battle in the previous bluetorial, it is fair to mention Oppenheimer here.) (1/4)
Show threadMáté VargaJan 3
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)
Show threadMáté VargaJan 3
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)
Show threadMáté VargaJan 3
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)
Show threadMáté VargaJan 3
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)