March 25, 2004 - 8:06PM
Copyright © 2004. The Age Company Ltd.

A fish found in home aquariums could help Australian scientists find a cure for a fatal neurological disease.

Scientists at Melbourne's Howard Florey Institute will genetically engineer the tiny zebra fish in an effort to find better treatments and a cure for motor neurone disease (MND).

In what the Howard Florey Institute says is a world first, scientists will breed the fish with a common form of the disease known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

New potential drug treatments will then be trialled on the fish.

Motor neurone disease, for which there is no effective treatment, usually strikes people who are middle-aged.

Sufferers, who may experience difficulty swallowing, weakness, slurred speech and muscle cramps, usually live for two to five years after being diagnosed with the disease.

Associate Professor Surindar Cheema, who is leading the research at the institute, said zebra fish were perfect subjects for the study of motor neurone disease.

The fish could be bred cost effectively and quickly and their organs and nervous systems were similar to those found in humans, he said.

"An important advantage of creating ALS/MND zebra fish is that a large number of potential new drugs for the disease can be tested very quickly," he said.

"This is crucial to the process of drug discovery as searching for new drugs to treat motor neurone disease is a very difficult process."