About Us

BWH Aquatics Facility at BWH is a 5,000+ fish tank facility, located in Eugene Braunwald Research Center at 221 Longwood Ave. It is a state-of-the-art 4000 sqft facility built by Tecniplast in 2012. The facility is equipped with 91 racks holding standard and nursery/isolation zebrafish tanks, 9 large scale breeding chambers (ispawns) and a quarantine space with two stand-alone housing systems. Wild-type lines are maintained in-house for shared use. Wet lab space is available for breeding and line maintenance and there is a dedicated procedure room for embryo manipulation and genotyping.  Full time staff performs daily feeding (including weekends) and maintenance and is available for assistance for procedure training and general husbandry questions. All BWH Zebrafish Core users must be associated with an IACUC-approved animal protocol.

Location of Core:

Brigham and Women's Hospital, EBRC/BLI

221 Longwood Ave, Room B-033

Boston, MA 02115

Our team:

Eva P. Buys, PhD, Associate Director

Megan Fernandes, Research Animal Specialist II

Harley Montiero, Research Animal Specialist I


Facilities and Equipment:

*Aquaculture Equipment:

  • 79 racks holding up to 50 standard sized adult zebrafish tanks (3.3 and 8L)
  • 12 racks for larval fish or isolation type experiments (1.1L)
  • 9 large scale breeding chambers (ispawns)
  • separate quarantine space with two stand-alone housing systems
  • food preparation room
  • dishwashers are located throughout the whole facility as well as a dedicated dishwashing room

*Laboratory Equipment:

  • Three large and two small Thermo Scientific Heratherm incubators to enable embryo maintenance at variable temperatures.
  • Two under counter Refrigerators, four under counter -20 freezers and a -80 freezer for the storage of laboratory and tissue samples
  • A Thermo Scientific Locator 6PLUS cryogenic storage vessel to store sperm samples.
  • Eight injection stations, each equipped with an Eppendorf Micro injection system and a Nikon SMZ800 stereomicroscope and a Sutter Instrument Model P-1000 micropipette needle puller.
  • A Bio-Rad T100 Thermal Cycler PCR machine for genotyping.
  • A dedicated microscope screening room with a Nikon fluorescence stereomicroscope SMZ1500 and a Nikon eclipse Ni high magnification microscope, each equipped with NIS-Elements microscope imaging Software.

Offered Services:

  • Housing, feeding and general care of Zebrafish (feeding, health monitoring, system maintenance)
  • Propagation of wild-type Zebrafish stocks for embryo production
  • Training in Zebrafish handling, husbandry and microinjection and imaging
  • Assistance with IACUC Zebrafish protocol
  • Shipping and receiving live Zebrafish
  • sperm freezing and in vitro fertilization (pending)
  • Study Consultation
  • Specialized projects (disease modeling, drug screening, genetic manipulation) upon request

Fee Structure (FY22 pricing)

Rack Fee 

  • includes 1 rack holding up 50 medium 3.3L tanks or 25 large 8L tanks and 
  • use of all nursery/isolation rack space and equipment listed above

$4560/year -$380/month (MGB)

$6560/year-$540/month (External - Non-Profit)

$7250/year - $600/month (External - Industry)

Scientist/Consultancy Fee

$90/hr (MGB)

$130/hr (External - Non-Profit)

$150/hr (External - Industry)

Technician Fee

$50/hr (MGB)

$70/hr (External - Non-Profit)

$80/hr (External - Industry)

For more information and inquiries, please contact Eva Buys 

email: eplovie@bwh.harvard.edu

Phone:  617-732-8578