RESEARCH - Research Summary

Animal Production Theme

Research Summary

Infectious diseases and biotoxins are the #1 cause of death in cultured fish species and therefore are associated with different levels of economic loss to the aquaculture industry. Fish health can be promoted through vaccination to prevent communicable infectious diseases from spreading or even getting established. However, to formulate effective, cheap vaccines that can be widely applied in aquaculture, a thorough understanding of infectious diseases is required. In the absence of integral laboratory models to study bacterial fish diseases, the use of animal models is the only way to obtain a thorough understanding about such diseases. In fact, it is unequivocally known to date that bacterial pathogens will not display their full armory of disease-causing factors except when they are exposed to the natural host environment.

This project will use small intraperitoneal devices known as diffusion chambers to expose fish pathogenic bacteria to different fish cells and tissues to study the outcome of the interaction. It will be like bringing the “test tube” where host-bacterial pathogen interactions have been studied for 50 years, to the peritoneal cavity of fish to carry forward such studies in the in vivo environment. The expected outcomes of this project include a better understanding of the basic mechanisms of infection, and the potential improvement of antimicrobial therapies and vaccines required to assure the global sustainability of the aquaculture industry.

Network Investigators

Rafael A. Garduno, Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS
Jeffrey P. Lewis, Dept. of Pathology and Microbiology, AVC, UPEI, Charlottetown, PE