Aquaculture therapeutics in microalgae

Microalgae are natural aquaculture feeds which can be used for the oral delivery aquaculture therapeutics. Application of therapeutics to aquaculture (e.g. fish and crustaceans) is cost and labor intensive as well as stressful for the animals as it often requires subcutaneous injections leaving injuries.

Objective/mission (The vision): Here we aim to express recombinant protein based antivirals and antibiotics in micro algae to enable low cost delivery of these oral therapeutics to the aquaculture industry.

Research approach (The initiative): The project will involve a wide range of molecular biology techniques, microalgal chloroplast based expression and scale up. Further opportunities exist in antimicrobial screening.

Impacts and applications: The production of low cost aquaculture therapeutics for oral delivery will provide significant benefits to the industry in terms of cost reduction , reduced animal stress and productivity.