Training and education – Institute of Aquaculture
Stirling work
Darren Green, head of learning and teaching at the Institute of Aquaculture, reports on the recent PhD research conference
I
n what is fast be- coming a tradition, last month saw the return of the PhD
research conference at the Institute of Aquaculture, Uni- versity of Stirling. Around 200 delegates registered for this fourth conference, on February 18, including our student cohort, currently hailing from 30 different countries and every continent except Antarctica. Also in attendance
were numerous repre- sentatives of industry, government, other academic institutions, and trade organisa- tions, many of whom work with us and sponsor our students, and several of whom are our alumni. A conference such as ours is as much concerned with de- veloping the research and employability skills of our students as it is a showcase of the research of the insti- tute. It allows them an opportunity to hone their presentation skills, defend their research during audi- ence questioning, and
mingle with potential employers and future collaborators. Fifteen of our students presented oral presentations across a range of subjects reflecting our four research groups: nutrition, genetics and reproduction, sustain- able aquaculture, and health and welfare. This was comple- mented by more than 30 posters in the poster session, plus two guest speakers – from Alltech and the Scottish Aquaculture Innovation Centre (SAIC).
This is our first insti- tute conference since the establishment of the SAIC and our af- ternoon keynote lec- ture was delivered by Heather Jones, chief executive officer. She spoke on the nature of innovation and the challenges to industry and academia posed by the need for it.
And this was the final institute conference during the tenure of Prof Brian Austin as institute director, prior to his retirement this summer. Brian chaired
Above and below: PhD students from the Institute of Aquaculture at the University of Stirling
the conference organ- ising committee and the morning sessions. Thanks to our gener- ous sponsors, we were able to offer prizes to those students whose posters and talks were rated most highly by our guest judges. In the oral sessions, first and second prize was awarded to Joanna Wil- son and William Clark. Joanna spoke about
her research in iden- tifying unique SNPs (single nucleotide pol- ymorphisms) in mussel species (Mytilus), as a tool to provide an up- to-date picture of mus- sel species distribution and introgression in Scotland, in order to help farmers manage their stocks. William’s research
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concerns characteri- sation of plasma bile pigments of ballan wrasse, the source of the blood plasma’s blue-green colour. He has been exploring their role during sexu- al development as well as more widely in the animal’s physiology. In the poster sessions, first and second prize were awarded to Pierre-Olivier Maquart and Sienna Gray. Pierre-Olivier is one of our newest students, re- searching the potential for commercial scale, insect based transfor- mation of organic waste for aqua-feeds and crop production in Ghana. Sienna is examining
differential gene expres- sion in wild, farmed, and hybrid Atlantic salmon.
The hope here is that this work will lead to a better understanding of domestication and pro- vide tools to monitor introgression of farmed salmon genes into wild fish.
Elsewhere in this
issue, you can read about the work pre-
“Delegates
included Stirling
students hailing from 30 different countries
”
sented in her poster by Alya AL-Ghabshi, an Omani student work- ing with Aeromonas bacterial species diversity in Oman, as a means to help understand the po- tential disease threats in what is a growing industry there (p. 39). The day was spon-
sored by an impres- sive 19 companies within and without the life sciences, who enabled us to provide catering, printing, virtual abstract books, prizes, and nibbles, and without whom the event would not have been possible. Many also had a presence at the conference, which enabled our students to mingle with poten- tial employers. FF
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