The Kizil Lab will participate in the 18th International Zebrafish Disease Models (ZDM18) Conference with two talks this year! Join us in Boston from October 13–15, 2025, where we will share our latest work on zebrafish disease models and our interesting findings. We look forward to connecting with the zebrafish research community there! https://www.zdmsociety.org/zdm18-agenda
New Paper Published: Shared Genetic Architecture Between Early-Onset Alzheimer’s and Lipid Traits
We are pleased to highlight a recent publication by Ray et al. (2025) that investigates local genetic covariance between early-onset Alzheimer’s disease (EOAD) and blood lipid traits. We in the Kizil Lab are proud to have contributed to this collaboration, which deepens our understanding of how lipid biology intersects with neurodegenerative risk. 👉 Read the …
New Preprint
Our collaborators - Tosches Lab - have just published a fascinating study: “The evolutionary origins of Cajal–Retzius cells”. We in the Kizil Lab were honored to contribute to this work, which maps Tp73⁺ neurons across vertebrates (chicken, salamander, zebrafish, skate) and reveals that Cajal–Retzius (CR) cells likely emerged from an ancient Tp73⁺ lineage associated with …
Decoding the Heart’s “Little Brain”
We’re proud to share our groundbreaking study published in Nature Communications. Our work sheds light on the zebrafish intracardiac nervous system (IcNS)—a local neural network acting as the heart’s "little brain." This was a fantastic collaborative effort between teams at Karolinska Institute and Columbia University, spearheaded by the Konstantinos Ampatzis Lab and Kizil Lab. Huge …
Our publication received the McAlpine Foundation for Neuroscience Research Award
We are proud to announce that our recent publication where we identified a protective genetic variant in FN1 gene against Alzheimer's disease received a recognition award from McAlpine Foundation as one of the best publications in 2024. http://www.mcalpinefoundation.org/awards.php In recognition of the Vardarajan, Kizil, and Mayeux labs' innovative cross-species approach to uncover protective mechanisms against …
Continue reading "Our publication received the McAlpine Foundation for Neuroscience Research Award"
Find us at the AD/PD 2023 meeting
We will be presenting two posters and will give a talk on our work in zebrafish, mouse and 3D human cultures in ADPD 2023 meeting in Gothenburg.
We will present our work at Karolinska Institute
Title: "Zebrafish as a new functional genomics tool for Alzheimer’s disease" Zebrafish regenerates its brain successfully even in Alzheimer’s disease conditions. No other animal has been shown to do this. The goal of the Kizil lab is to learn from zebrafish how we can enable the human brain to better cope with neurodegenerative disease and …
Continue reading "We will present our work at Karolinska Institute"
First spin-off of DZNE from Kizil Lab
A joint spin-off of the DZNE and the Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research Dresden (IPF), providing technology for drug development: Neuron D GmbH (www.neurond.de) https://www.dzne.de/en/research/projects/neuron-d/ https://p573452.webspaceconfig.de/videos/neurond_by_dzne.mp4
Kizil Lab tenured in DZNE
Today Kizil Lab is officially tenured at DZNE! We feel humbled upon the trust of DZNE and Helmholtz Association. We'll keep deciphering the mysteries of zebrafish coping with Alzheimer's and thrive to develop novel interventions in the human brain with what zebrafish teaches us. We thank to all former & current lab members as well …
Our Alzheimer’s disease model in zebrafish is used for validating a drug that prevents loss of neuronal connections
A collaborative work led by Jared Sterneckert, and in which Kizil Lab was also involved, is now published in the journal Stem Cell Reports, the official journal of International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR). This study identified a lead compound that inhibits CDK5 and GSK3β, and is neuroprotective in vitro and in vivo. Prabesh …
Kizil Lab 