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Revision as of 16:17, 4 October 2020
flavoflow
Throughout history fish have always been one of the most important food sources.
The consumption of aquaculture products has been steadily increasing during the past 50 years and has now doubled since.
Growing fish consumption drives a need for a more intensive fish farming - a need which emerging aquaculture farms have stepped in to satisfy.
In order to obtain greater amounts of fish in a shorter period of time, aquafarms have implemented recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS).
Advantages of RAS
reduced water and land needs
fully controlled environment
automated feeding strategy
Disadvantages of RAS
high electricity consumption
water quality
However, the biggest challenge is
Since the water in RAS is circulated between tanks, if one bacteria-infected fish enters the system, not long after, the entire RAS system can become contaminated.
Diseases caused by Flavobacterium spp. constitute one of the biggest host and geographic ranges of the bacterial fish pathogens.
The most common of these bacteria are the two opportunistic species:
Flavobacterium
psychrophilum
causes bacterial coldwater disease
Flavobacterium
columnare
causes columnaris disease
What's the deal with the fish?
Typically, these diseases are denoted by heavy bacterial colonizations of gill epithelium and eroded fin tips.
However, after these physical changes are being seen, the respiratory and osmoregulatory functions are already damaged.
Thus, if the disease is not detected in a span of a few days, it can result in massive fish die-offs.
Are there any solutions to this problem?
Actually, yes!
We have found three major approaches to solving the Flavoproblem.
detection
One of our main goals is the development of a rapid detection test is based on helicase-dependent amplification (HDA) and lateral-flow assay (LFA) methods. This kit will help farmers in identifying what the Flavo is in their tanks.
Detection, however, is only a tool which will reduce aquafarm’s losses - it will not solve the underlying problem.
treatment
Due to this reason, we have developed a new fundamental method to treat these diseases based on toxin-antitoxin or exolysin-endolysin systems.
On the other hand, no matter how perfect the treatment strategy is, it solves only the consequences of the disease.
prevention
Keeping this in mind, we have also created an innovative prevention tool, which is based on the packaging of immunogenic proteins into alginate beads.
let's dive in