Dr. Thomas W. Moon
Professor of Biology and Vice-Dean Research, Faculty of Science
Department of Biology
University of Ottawa
tmoon@uottawa.ca
The diversity of aquatic vertebrates and in particular fish is truly amazing! Yet as humans the ‘sink’ for our industrial and personal wastes is ultimately the aquatic environment. Physiologies are extremely sensitive to environmental perturbations and my research examines the apparent paradox in this relationship between the aquatic environment that is constantly changing and the ability of fish to adjust to these changes. Using whole animal, cellular (isolated cells), biochemical (enzymes, metabolites) and molecular techniques (RNA, transfection, transgenes), we study this complex interaction between the fish and the environment. At the moment, research in my laboratory can be grouped into two themes: 1) the role of stress as an adaptive mechanism; and 2) the evolution of hormones and hormone function. Our work is continuing to move more towards molecular technologies and toxicology while ensuring that these processes can be traced back to some physiological functions in the animal.
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