Fredericton's Research and Productivity Council (RPC) continues to excel in Marine-based Innovations

June 2008
FREDERICTON, NB - The June and December issues of Scope, the newsletter of RPC's Food, Fisheries & Aquaculture (FFA) Department highlighted some of the current news and projects arising from that group. These included:

-The recruitment of Dr. Tony Manning to the FFA team. Dr. Manning is a fish physiologist with experience in Atlantic cod, Atlantic salmon, haddock, and marine flatfishes. His doctoral research focused on fish reproduction. Prior to joining RPC, Dr. Manning worked as a post-doctoral research fellow at the NRC-Institute for Marine Biosciences in Halifax where he performed gene expression studies in larval fishes using techniques such as microarray and quantitative PCR.

-Current research in collaboration with Novartis Animal Health (NAH) Canada Inc. aimed at determining which immune responses of Atlantic salmon provide protection against the infectious salmon anaemia virus (ISAV), by examining the genes that are expressed in the lymphatic tissues of salmon that have been able to survive an ISAV infection. This will be done using microarray technology, which is used in genomic studies to examine the expression of thousands of genes simultaneously, and help to identify biomarkers and pathways involved in salmon ISAV resistance.

-Current fish health research in support of Multitrophic Aquaculture, an emerging practice in the Bay of Fundy, which involves the co-culture of seaweeds and blue mussels alongside salmon cages. With partners Cooke Aquaculture and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), RPC is collaborating to determine the impact of this practice on several fish diseases.

-Current research on probiotics, which are bacteria that confer benefit to their environment. In Atlantic Canada and elsewhere, rearing of alternative species such as cod and haddock has often been plagued by very low survival rates at the larval stages. The use of probiotics (live beneficial bacteria), have resulted in significant improvements in larval survival, due to the ability of the probiotics to encourage the development of a healthy bacterial community with the larvae and exclude the establishment of harmful pathogens.

If you are interested in subscribing to the SCOPE newsletter, please contact: info@rpc.ca .
RPC is an independent contract R&D and technical services organization located in Fredericton, NB. Its complement of 100 researchers and technologists are supported by a 13,000 sq. meter facility housing world-class laboratories and a wide variety of pilot facilities for the development and improvement of industrial and environmental processes and products. In the biosciences, RPC expertise includes fish health, genotyping, forensic genomics, bio-remediation, energy from waste products, and a suite of molecular biology services. The RPC's Executive Director, Eric Cook, is a recognized authority on innovation through market-pull models, and was recently invited to present on this topic at the Jasper Innovation Forum. You can learn more about the RPC at:http://www.rpc.ca

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