We study myelinated axons, which are essential for the formation and function of a healthy nervous system. Disruption to myelin or associated axons contributes to many diseases across the life-span from neurodevelopmental disorders through neurodegenerative conditions, such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS).

We primarily use zebrafish as a model to understand how myelinated axons are built and become functional during development and how they are damaged and can be repaired in disease. We use zebrafish because we can directly visualise biological events as they occur in the living animal and because we can carry out large scale discovery projects to identify molecular mechanisms underpinning myelinated axon formation and function, damage and repair..

We complement our discovery work in zebrafish with coallaboration-based investigation of mammalian models and humans.