After graduating from Imperial College London in 1986, Fisher moved to the United States, where she was appointed a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
[7] In 2001 Fisher was appointed Professor at University College London and in 2017 she also set up a lab at the Medical Research Council Mouse Genetics Unit in Harwell.
[3] Her research considers motor neuron degeneration, genome editing and the development of mouse models to understand neurological disorders.
In a paper published in Science, Fisher found that two spontaneous mouse mutants generated from an ENU (N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea) screen harbored missense point mutations in the cytoplasmic dynein heavy chain gene.
These mutants were named Loa (Legs at odd angles) and Cra1 (Cramping 1) due to the phenotypes of body twisting and hindlimb clenching when suspended by the tail.
Homozygotes are unable to feed and move and die within 24 hours of birth, but embryonic neurons have intracellular inclusions that are positive for ubiquitin, SOD, CDK5, and neurofilament.
[3] ALS is a form of motor neuron disease that occurs during middle age, whereas spinal muscular atrophy is the most common genetic killer of children.