A new EUR 6 million (USD 7.9 million) research partnership led by universities in the UK and the Netherlands, but including many international collaborators, is taking aim at disease outbreaks in fish farms.
The new collaboration, called TargetFish, will involve the University of Aberdeen in the UK, according to a statement from the university.
“TargetFish will advance the development of existing — but not sufficient — vaccines as well as new prototype ones which will target socio-economically important viral or bacterial pathogens of Atlantic salmon, rainbow trout, common carp, sea bass, seabream and turbot, said Professor Chris Secombes, chair of zoology at the university.
Dr. Geert Wiegertjes, at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, is leading the research project, and other collaborators from Denmark, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, Norway, the Czech Republic, Israel, Estonia and Chile will also participate.
Aberdeen’s statement noted that aquaculture in Europe has a turnover of EUR 3 billion (USD 3.9 billion), and the best known method for controlling infectious disease has been through vaccination.
