# First person – Nichole Link

## TL;DR

This paper presents a study on how a Zika virus protein affects host pathways in fruit flies during development.

## Contribution

The study introduces a novel screen in Drosophila to identify host pathways targeted by a Zika virus protein during development.

## Key findings

- A Zika virus protein was found to disrupt specific host pathways in Drosophila during development.
- The research provides insights into how the Zika virus interacts with host developmental processes.

## Abstract

First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Disease Models & Mechanisms, helping researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Nichole Link is first author on ‘
A Zika virus protein expression screen in Drosophila to investigate targeted host pathways during development’, published in DMM. Nichole conducted the research described in this article while a postdoctoral researcher in Hugo Bellen's lab at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA. She is now an assistant professor and has her own laboratory at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, investigating genetic and developmental models of human disease.