CINCINNATI — If your sense of taste was lost or impacted after COVID, a type of fish and researchers could help change that.

A professor and students at the University of Cincinnati are studying how blind fish developed taste buds on the outside of their bodies. Educators said the information could be used in the future to help find ways to help humans restore taste buds. 

What You Need To Know

  • A University of Cincinnati biology professor and his students are studying how blind fish developed taste buds 

  • Through their studies, they've found the fish developed taste buds on the outside of their bodies later in their lives 

  • They hoping to find enough information that the study can be used to one day be used to help humans restore taste buds 

Danielle Newsom is trying to get the fish to take the bait. Her Ph.D. degree depends on it.

“It's my first time doing this technique and it's new and exciting and interesting," said Newsom. 

She’s studying biology. She's trying to figure out how fish with no eyes ended up with taste buds on the outside of their bodies.

“I’m basically looking at the taste buds on a really small level and putting some protein markers in there, making them light up and seeing if they're present in the taste buds," said Newsom.

What she’s doing is not only part of her studies at the University of Cincinnati, but part of research that her professor Josh Gross said could be used to change how humans make taste buds.

"From the COVID 19 pandemic we know that taste was one of the main features of sensation that was lost so being able to restore that may be a translational use long term down the road," said Gross. 

First, he said, they have to find out how it’s happening to these fish. He says the fish, are cave fish called from Mexico, born with no eyes after they adapted to their dark environment.

He said they were not born with taste buds everywhere.

“When you have an unusual circumstance like this with fish that have taste buds that go outside of the mouth and cover the head, what that means is that the fundamental developmental programs have had to shift," said Gross. 

He says he’s been studying that shift for years, and in a recent report, found the blind fish taste buds formed later in their lives, but there are still some unanswered questions.

“What we still don't know, actually, is exactly what those taste buds are doing,” said Gross. 

It's something students like Newsom are trying to find out.

“We're just excited to keep it going, excited to see what we all get going forward," said Newsom. 

For more information or to see the full university report on fish taste buds, click here.