Professor Brian Dixon receives a grant to test dynamic thermoregulation as a replacement for antibiotics in aquaculture
By Sarah Fullerton, Digital Communications Specialist
Professor Brian Dixon and a team of researchers have been awarded a grant of $1,598,510 as part of the InnovetAMR international funding call, jointly supported by the International Development Research Centre and UK AID.
This funding initiative targets the reduction of antibiotic usage in agriculture and aquaculture to combat antibiotic-resistant pathogens. Due to disease outbreaks, Aquaculture, a rapidly expanding industry responsible for more than 50% of the world's seafood, faces significant challenges. In response, farmers often resort to antibiotics to treat diseases. In 2020 alone, Chile administered a staggering 500 tonnes of antibiotics in aquaculture.
Widespread antibiotic use poses a serious environmental threat by fuelling the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria among both human and animal populations. Dixon and team propose dynamic thermoregulation as a low-cost, accessible, low-technology solution to alleviate this problem and improve aquatic animal health. Dynamic thermoregulation only requires changing water temperature by 2 to 4 degrees for short periods to increase disease resistance and survival.
“With this funding, we could provide an easily implemented solution to reduce the use of antibiotics in aquaculture for a cleaner environment,” Dixon says.
The funding will allow the researchers to map the dynamic thermoregulation patterns of fish and shrimp in response to common aquaculture pathogens. They will then investigate whether mechanically replicating these patterns can enhance survival in infected animals to determine if adding dynamic thermoregulation to therapeautants will increase their efficacy.
In the coming months, Dixon and team will be carrying out the research objectives to determine if mechanical thermoregulation can effectively mimic behavioural dynamic thermoregulation, and whether dynamic thermoregulation works for tilapia and shrimp. If successful, this research could save the aquaculture industry from disease outbreak costs (approximately $50 billion annually).