My lab studies early notochord formation and intervertebral disc development using zebrafish and mice. We are interested in understanding associated structural birth defects, intervertebral disc diseases, such as disc degeneration, and cancer. We focus on three approaches: 1) defining cis-regulatory elements of tissue-specific genes to identify their involvement in vertebrate development, in particular the notochord and intervertebral discs, as well as associated diseases, such as intervertebral disc disease, 2) using genome editing to generate disease-associated alleles to inform about future disease outcome and secondary effects, and 3) assessing the genotype-phenotype association of mutations involved in disease or phenotypes from toxicological studies.