Health – EAFP
BY PATRICK SMITH
target E
uropean aquaculture production provides direct employment to more than 65,000 people and has a turnover of approxi- mately three billion Euros per annum. However, the lack of authorised veterinary
medicinal products, and the consequent disease outbreaks in farmed fish species, costs the sector approximately 20 per cent of its production value. The most appropriate method for dis- ease control, both on economic and ethical grounds, is disease prevention by vaccination. An EU-funded project – TargetFish - address- es this problem by improving existing, and de- veloping new, prototype vaccines against the most socio-economically important viral and bacterial pathogens of farmed species such as Atlantic salmon, rainbow trout, common carp, sea bass, sea bream and turbot. The project is developing targeted vaccina-
tion strategies for currently sub-optimal and for novel vaccines. Improved vaccines will be brought closer to industrial application by addressing practical issues such as efficacy, safety and delivery route. TargetFish is also establishing a knowledge
and technology base for the rational develop- ment of ‘next generation’ fish vaccines. To achieve these challenging goals, the
TargetFish project has brought together 29 partners from 11 EU member states, two associated countries and one international cooperation partner country (ICPC).
28 Hitting the
Engagement between academic research and industry will hasten next generation products
In this large multi-disciplinary consortium, an approximate equal
number of RTD and SME partners are cooperating closely, while keeping close communication with the large aquatic animal health and nutritional industries via an industrial forum. Specifically, TargetFish aims to: generate knowledge by studying
antigens and adjuvants for mucosal routes of administration while ana- lysing and underpinning protective immune mechanisms; validate this knowledge with response assays for monitoring vaccine efficacy and study safety aspects, including those associated with DNA vaccines; approach implementation of prototype vaccines by optimising vaccina- tion strategies, thus; shortening the route to exploitation. As such, this project will greatly enhance targeted disease prophylax-
is in European fish farming. The industry co-ordinator for the TagetFish project is Tethys Aquaculture. The first TargetFish industry forum was held at the 16th international
Above: Tampere, Finland
conference of the European Association of Fish Pathologists (EAFP) in Tampere, Finland, in September 2013. The forum was well attended by representatives from both the
aquaculture and the aquatic animal health industries and provided networking opportunities between academic researchers and those working in the commercial sector. It was held after the commencement of the TargetFish project, and
therefore performed the function of informing industry of the pres- ence of the project and providing more detailed information on the structure and membership of the consortium and details of the various work packages under the umbrella of the project. The second industry forum, which will be held on September 10 as
a workshop at the 17th international conference of the EAFP, will be three years into the five-year project, and at a time when a number of significant findings crucial to the development of new vaccines and vaccine delivery systems have been made.
www.fishfarmer-magazine.com
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