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University and industry researchers will work in the search for sustainable solutions to the challenges facing aquaculture production.
Research consortium seeks to boost aquaculture with genetic techniques
UNITED KINGDOM
Saturday, February 23, 2019, 02:40 (GMT + 9)
A major research collaboration between academic and industry scientists aims to boost selective breeding of stocks of vital UK aquaculture species.
The initiative, called AquaLeap, has a financial backing of GBP 1.7 million that it has obtained from several scientific bodies. It will focus on four key species that have substantial economic and environmental importance for the UK: the European lobster, European flat oyster, lumpfish and Atlantic salmon.
Atlantic salmon is one of the four species this project will focus on.
University researchers and industry partners will work together to identify sustainable solutions to current challenges facing aquaculture production, including significant diseases.
“Well-managed programmes of domestication and breeding have a large and mostly untapped potential for improvement in aquaculture production. AquaLeap will focus on developing and applying genomic tools to selective breeding of several important aquaculture species,” said Professor Ross Houston from Roslin Institute.
The interdisciplinary consortium is led by the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute in partnership with the Universities of Aberdeen, Exeter and Stirling, and the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS).
The project also counts on commercial partners such as Hendrix Genetics, Xelect, The National Lobster Hatchery, Tethys Oysters, and Otter Ferry SeaFish.
The experts will use cutting-edge genetic sequencing technologies to identify DNA markers that are linked to economically important traits, such as disease resistance or growth rate.
Aqualeap consortium at their first meeting in The Roslin Institute.
They will also develop gene-editing techniques to understand genes controlling resistance to diseases, and explore possibilities of using this technology to speed up stock improvement.
AquaLeap is funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Natural Environment Research Council under their targeted UK Aquaculture Initiative, with additional co-funding from the Scottish Aquaculture Innovation Centre.
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