Integration of knowledge is the key to healthy fish and shellfish

Aquaculture is becoming increasingly important in meeting the worldwide growing demands for healthy aquatic animal food products due to reduced wild fish stocks. Infectious diseases represent a major threat towards expansion of aquaculture production and the current use of antibiotics, drugs, and chemical disinfectants is compromising both consumer safety, as well as the environment. Implementation of a strategy based on prevention rather than cure is therefore crucial for a sustainable expansion of aquaculture production compatible with the environment.

In the late 1980ies development of vaccines against two devastating bacterial diseases in Atlantic salmon started in Norway and Scotland, and the vaccination programmes later implemented both increased production and reduced use of antibiotics, thus demonstrating the great potential of fish vaccination. During the next 20 years although further efforts were devoted to the development of vaccines to other fish diseases, progress was slow as knowledge of the fish immune system was poor and simple trial and error strategies did not prove effective.

Vaccination is based on the capacity of the immune system to recognize and eliminate foreign components such as bacteria and viruses from the body. Whereas the human immune system is relatively well characterised and many tools have been developed to monitor what is going on, immunological research on fish and shellfish has long suffered from a lack of knowledge about functional details and methods to monitor the response to infections. Knowledge of the immune system is crucial for developing efficient strategies for disease prevention, e.g. by vaccination but, here fish and shellfish clearly are behind humans.

In order to resolve the knowledge gap the Integrated Research Project IMAQUANIM, funded by the European Commission Framework 6 programme, was established in 2005 and brought together 22 partners including 17 universities and governmental research institutes, as well as five small and medium size enterprises (SMEs). These 22 partners have been working in a joint effort to establish a knowledge and technology platform for the development of vaccines and other tools to improve immunity to infectious diseases of Europe’s major aquacultured species. This brochure should give you an impression of the many, scientific and technological advances made by the joint effort of the IMAQUANIM consortium. Infectious diseases will continue to represent a major threat towards aquaculture production, but the outcomes of IMAQUANIM form a sound basis for development of efficient strategies for minimising disease outbreaks in the future.