SBIR Phase II: Molecular Diagnostics and Biological Control of Disease in Farmed Channel Catfish

这项小企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目旨在开发一种有效、廉价、安全的方法来控制养殖鲶鱼的疾病。养殖鲶鱼的最大问题之一是在商业池塘中发生的疾病。奥本大学（Auburn University）的科学家发现了一种天然细菌，可以应用于鱼饲料中，以控制最常见的疾病。Lucigen正在开发快速、简单的测试方法，能够在鱼生病之前检测出这些疾病。目标是将这些想法结合起来开发商业产品，以快速诊断和治疗最常见的鲶鱼疾病。这项研究的更广泛的影响是：1)保护美国东南部农村经济落后地区的重要工业；2)保护日益重要的食物来源。由于大多数野生鱼类的产量正在下降，养殖鱼类正在成为世界各地的重要食物来源和重要产业。水产养殖池塘中的鱼类疾病在收获前造成多达一半的鱼类损失，在世界范围内造成数十亿美元的损失，而且没有令人满意的方法来控制大多数这些疾病的爆发。抗生素、疫苗、化学品或控制饲养都贵得令人望而却步，对人类和环境健康有害和/或不利于产量。鲶鱼疾病的检测和控制是该项目的直接重点，解决了每年因疾病造成的2000万至3000万美元损失。从长远来看，类似的生物防治系统应该适用于美国和世界其他地区的其他鱼类。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is aimed at developing an effective, inexpensive, safe means of controlling diseases in farm-raised catfish. One of the biggest problems in farm-raised catfish is disease that occurs in commercial ponds. Scientists at Auburn University discovered strains of natural bacteria that can be applied to fish feed to control the most common diseases. Lucigen is developing rapid, simple tests capable of detecting these diseases before the fish get sick. The goal is to combine these ideas to develop commercial products to rapidly diagnose and treat the most common catfish diseases. The broader impacts of this research are 1) the preservation of an important industry in economically disadvantaged regions of the rural southeastern US and 2) protection of an increasingly important food source. Since yields of most wild-caught fish are declining, farmed fish are becoming an important food source and an important industry throughout the world. Fish diseases in aquaculture ponds cause losses of up to half the fish before harvest, costing billions of dollars worldwide, and there is no satisfactory means of controlling most of these outbreaks. Antibiotics, vaccines, chemicals or controlled feeding are all prohibitively expensive, harmful to human and environmental health and/or bad for yields. The detection and control of catfish diseases, the immediate focus of this project, addresses the $20-30M in annual losses caused by disease. Longer term, similar biological control systems should be applicable to other fish species in the US and the rest of the world.