When you’re facing a serious illness, you may not think about how a tiny zebrafish could help you. But Wolfram Goessling, MD, PhD, Yale Medicine’s new chair of the Department of Internal Medicine, has been fascinated for decades by these slender fish with their blue and golden iridescent stripes. Zebrafish share much of their genetic makeup with humans, along with similarities in organs and cell types—making them powerful tools for medical research.
Dr. Goessling pioneered the use of zebrafish to study liver disease and conducted research that helped lead to clinical trials for the first medications for liver cancer. Today, when he sits at a patient’s bedside, he may be able to offer treatments that simply didn’t exist when he began practicing medicine.
“Today we have so many ways to diagnose, prevent, and treat disease thanks to the tools and technologies researchers have developed,” says Dr. Goessling. That progress is evident across internal medicine, he adds—especially at Yale. “So much here is connected to research, innovation, and new ways of thinking about disease. We want our patients to benefit from all of that.”
Dr. Goessling oversees the clinical, research, and educational missions of all Yale Medicine’s Department of Internal Medicine sections, including cardiology, oncology, geriatrics, rheumatology, and infectious diseases. A professor of internal medicine at Yale School of Medicine, he also serves as chair of medicine for the school, chief of internal medicine at Yale New Haven Hospital, and physician-in-chief for the Yale New Haven Health System.
He spoke with us about his new role, how playing the trumpet provides balance to his life, and, of course, zebrafish.
