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HomePosts Tagged "ICAR-CIBA"
Acquaculture, Agribusiness, Agro Universities, Agrotech, Animal Health, Collaborations, Company News, India, Live Stock

The VNN vaccine developed by CIBA can prevent vertical transmission of the disease to the offsprings and prevent mortality in fingerlings.

Indian Immunologicals Limited (IIL), a leading vaccine manufacturer, has announced partnership with Central Institute of Brackishwater Aquaculture (CIBA), Chennai, an Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) Institute for the commercial development of a recombinant monovalent viral nervous necrosis vaccine for finfish developed by CIBA.

IIL ventured into aqua business in October 2022 by launching products for aquaculture health market dealing with pond management and fish or shrimp gut management and subsequently announced commercial development of fish vaccines with ICAR’s CIFE, Mumbai and CIFA, Bhubaneswar. India is the 3rd largest fish producer in the global sphere and more than 65 per cent of India’s fish is through Inland Fisheries and Aquaculture. The main constraint to aquaculture globally, however, is disease with an estimate that 20 per cent of all cultured aquatic animals are lost because of infectious diseases, amounting to >10 billion USD in losses annually on a global scale.

Viral nervous necrosis (VNN) or viral encephalopathy and retinopathy (VER) is an acute viral disease affecting several species of marine, brackishwater and freshwater fishes. The disease causes up to 100 per cent mortality in larval and early juvenile stages. Adult fish when infected, is asymptomatic, but can transmit the virus to the offspring through eggs and gonadal fluids.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr K Anand Kumar, Managing Director, Indian Immunologicals Limited said, “IIL is the first in India to get to fish vaccines. We are covering different kind of fishes (fresh water, brackish water, etc.) and culture conditions (pond, cage culture, etc.) and are aware of the challenges associated with being the first, having been in similar situations for many other livestock vaccines. We are working at multiple fronts in defining pathways for commercial development of fish vaccines in India”.

Dr. Priyabrata Pattnaik, Deputy Managing Director, Indian Immunologicals Limited added “IIL as a leading “One Health” organization is committed to developing vaccines for different fish pathogens with a long-term strategic objective of reducing use of antibiotics in aquaculture there by antimicrobial resistance in environment”.

Dr. Kuldeep K. Lal, Director, ICAR-CIBA said “viral nervous necrosis is a major threat for brackishwater aquaculture. The VNN vaccine developed by CIBA can prevent vertical transmission of the disease to the offsprings and prevent mortality in fingerlings. The vaccine can play a significant role in controlling the loss due to VNN in India and other Asian countries”.

Aquaculture in India suffers economic losses due to infections caused by several bacterial, viral, fungal, and other aetiological agents. Currently these infections are being managed by anti-infectives and other conventional measures with varying degree of success. With the rising concern pertaining on anti-microbial resistance (AMR) and chemical free food products both at global and domestic platforms, there is a growing need for better control measures against these infections. Currently there is no fish vaccines available in India on a commercial scale to prevent aquaculture infections.

The VNN vaccine developed by CIBA can

Acquaculture, Agro Universities, India, Live Stock

MoU to create market linkage or the CIBA mentored seaweed farmers to sell the cultivated indigenous brackishwater seaweed species

ICAR-Central Institute of Brackishwater Aquaculture, Chennai signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with M/s. Pinnacle Bioscience, Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu to create market linkage for the CIBA mentored seaweed farmers to sell the cultivated indigenous brackishwater seaweed species.

Kuldeep K Lal, Director, ICAR-CIBA emphasised the importance of seaweed cultivation as a viable livelihood option, a rich source of nutritious food, and a major solution for the bioremediation of waterbodies. He further briefed about the minerals and nutrients available in seaweeds and the importance given to seaweed culture under the PMMSY scheme.

Burosothaman, Research Fellow, M/s. Pinnacle Bioscience added that seaweeds being nutrient rich have high value when converted into energy products, biofertilisers, and food products. He said demand for seaweeds is very high in the industrial sector as the seaweeds contribute greatly to manufacture agar, alginate, food additives, fertiliser and medicine and there is lack of seaweed availability to meet the demand.

P Nila Rekha, Principal Scientist and team leader briefly outlined the genesis of the brackishwater seaweed culture starting from bioremediation in shrimp farm discharge water, biofliter for RAS and standardisation of culture practices for indigeneous seaweed Agarophyton tenuistipitata.  

MoU to create market linkage or the

Acquaculture, Agri Genomics, Agro Universities

The whole-genome information of an aquaculture species has potential applications in the genomic selection and breeding of fish for sustainable production and improvement in the desirable traits like disease resistance

In a major achievement, the ICAR-Central Institute of Brackishwater Aquaculture, Chennai’s Scientists have sequenced and assembled the whole genome of the Grey Mullet – Mugil cephalus. The whole-genome information of an aquaculture species has potential applications in the genomic selection and breeding of fish for sustainable production and improvement in the desirable traits like disease resistance, growth and development. The Mugil cephalus is commonly distributed across the world and mostly inhabits the inshore sea, estuaries and brackish water areas. The fish is of commercial value to the global fisheries and aquaculture, there is also high demand for mullet roe.

The whole-genome sequence of Mugil cephalus is a major landmark and this very high-quality genome assembly at the contig-level contained 848 contigs with N50 length of 20.15 Mb. At scaffold level, the assembly is 644 Mb in length in 583 scaffolds with N50 of 28.32 Mb. The fish genome contains 27,269 protein-coding genes.

The whole-genome sequence assembly generated for the first time for Mugil cephalus can be used as a reference genome for the family Mugilidae. The high-quality, chromosome-level genome assembly along with the predicted protein sequences would help to gain further insights into desirable traits through gene expression studies. The whole-genome assembly would provide the baseline information needed to implement genetic improvement programmes for this commercially important fish species in future.

The institute’s science team involved in the fish genome assembly were Dr MS Shekhar, Dr Vinaya Kumar Katneni, Dr Ashok Kumar Jangam, Dr Raymond Jani Angel, Dr Krishna Sukumaran and Dr M Kailasam. The Genome Sequencing Project was financially supported by the ICAR-Consortium Research Platform on Genomics and coordinated by Dr Joykrushna Jena, Deputy Director General (Fisheries Science), ICAR.

The whole-genome information of an aquaculture species