12. Background Explain how the animal species and model used address the scientific objectives and, where appropriate, the relevance to human biology. examples

“…we selected a pilocarpine model of epilepsy that is characterized by robust, frequent spontaneous seizures acquired after a brain insult, well-described behavioral abnormalities, and poor responses to antiepileptic drugs. These animals recapitulate several key features of human temporal lobe epilepsy, the most common type of epilepsy in adults.” [1]

“Transplantation of healthy haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) is a critical therapy for a wide range of malignant haematological and non-malignant disorders and immune dysfunction…Zebrafish are already established as a successful model to study the haematopoietic system, with significant homology with mammals…Imaging of zebrafish transparent embryos remains a powerful tool and has been critical to confirm that the zebrafish Caudal Haematopoietic Tissue (CHT) is comparable to the mammalian foetal haematopoietic niche...Xenotransplantation in zebrafish embryos has revealed highly conserved mechanisms between zebrafish and mammals. Recently, murine bone marrow cells were successfully transplanted into zebrafish embryos, revealing highly conserved mechanism of haematopoiesis between zebrafish and mammals…Additionally, CD34 enriched human cells transplanted into zebrafish were shown to home to the CHT and respond to zebrafish stromal-cell derived factors…” [2]