2nd Institute of Aquaculture PhD Research Conference
Held on Monday 28th June 2010
Conference opened with a thought provoking presentation from our keynote speaker Mr Peter Hajipeiris, Chief Technical, Sustainability & External Affairs Officer at Birds Eye Iglo; and industry champion of Aquaculture. His talk focused on the positive attributes of the aquaculture sector in meeting food demand, its place in maintaining food security in the long term, the global nature of the aquaculture sector and the need to maintain high quality branding in areas of retail, manufacturers and research. There was a lot of agreement between delegates that Peter had highlighted the key issues around food security, aquaculture sustainability and the need to communicate the positive at all levels of the industry. A copy of Peter’s talk is available for download here.
Conference sponsors:
Stirling Graduate Research School,
Novartis Animals Vaccines Limited,
Skretting Limited,
Biomar Limited,
EWOS Innovation,
Scottish Aquaculture Research Forum,
Lighthouse Caledonia,
Wiley Blackwell,
Thistle Scientific,
Marine Harvest,
Marine Harvest Scotland,
MASTS Graduate School,
Intervet/Schering Plough,
and Birds Eye Iglo
Peter’s talk was followed by 3 oral sessions in which 9 PhD students presented their research results and importantly how this research is liable to impact the development in the relevant sectors of the industry.
The international nature of our students was in evidence, the 9 presentations given by 8 nationalities; from Bangladesh, Egypt, France, Germany, Holland, Malaysia, Spain and the UK. The nationality of the 9 says a lot about the international nature of the research collaboration in the Institute. The subject matter in the 9 talks covered the wide range research areas conducted in the Institute of Aquaculture, including Disease, Reproduction, GIS, Nutrition, Environment/Ecotoxicology, Genetics, Welfare and Development.
There were 3 prizes provided by our sponsors (Skretting, EWOS and SSPO), judged for quality of the presentation and the all important ability to describe and “transfer” this knowledge simply and meaningfully.
- First prize was presented to Mohammed Khan (from Bangladesh) for an exceptionally good talk on the genetics and production of all male tilapia to overcome environmental and fish growth performance. Entitled “Application of DNA markers in genetically male tilapia (GMT) production”.
- Second prize went to Jan Heumann (From Germany) for his talk entitled “ABC transporters as a factor affecting drug susceptibility in sea lice”.
- Third prize went to Louise Colliar (From UK) for her talk entitled “A persistent environmental pollutant as an endocrine disruptor via the peroxisome proliferate-activated receptor PPAR?”.
The oral sessions were very well supported by posters from 41 PhD students (who emanate from 22 countries) displayed very effectively in The Crush Hall, (These were supported by 5 post-doc and 7 promotional Institute posters) covering all areas of expertise within the Institute.
Judges assessed completeness of the “story” and effectiveness and impact of the research in the ability to present their information to a wide audience.
Once again prizes were provided by our sponsors (Novartis, Skretting and SSPO).
- First prize went to Silvia Soares (Portugal) for a very effective poster evaluating mortality loss in Atlantic salmon culture.
- Second prize went to Laura Martinez (Spain) for a poster on microarray use in assessing the effects of diet in the gene expression of heart muscle inflammation virus in salmon.
- Third prize went to and Victor Peredo-Alvarez (Mexico) for a poster on catchment level assessment of the distribution of native species of aquaculture potential in Mexico.
Each student winner, in both categories, was also allowed to select a book kindly donated by Wiley-Blackwell from their stand at the conference.
The conference was once again a raging success with many compliments received from conference delegates. It provided an excellent opportunity to detail the high quality research being carried out in the Institute. 167 people attended the conference, staff and students from the Institute of Aquaculture and 1/3 of the delegates were external; personnel coming from farm companies, feed companies, veterinary product manufacturers and trade bodies across the aquaculture sector.
Fish Farmer has agreed to a 2-page spread in their August issue coming out soon. A special edition of the Institutes Aquaculture News will also be distributed shortly.