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What's the Problem?
Aquaculture industry Aquaculture’s annual growth rate of 6% will generate profits exceeding USD 208.9 billion USD, by 2025. Despite the high impact of this industry on food production, there have been serious threats to its economic growth due to the various diseases that attack farmed fish, producing losses of over USD 6 billion per year. Infections outbreaks control To fight them, the industry spends an additional billion on ineffective vaccines and large amounts of antibiotics with disastrous effects on the environment and our health. Nevertheless, antibiotic consumption is expected to increase by 33% by 2030. Chile Chile is the second largest salmon producer worldwide, with over 5 billion USD returns in 2021. The Chilean salmon farming industry - the world’s second largest - uses ineffective resources to control pathogen outbreaks during the production cycle. Despite these measures, economic losses attributed to infections exceed 500 million USD and producers keep on losing key markets for more stringent regulations on antibiotics. There is an urgent need to develop new technologies that cope with infectious diseases.
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How are they Solving it?
We developed a disruptive and cost-effective technology that improves survival rates for fish and replaces antibiotics. We focused on reinforcing the fish immune system using a recombinant protein. How do we do this? We were able to identify and select the key protein from the salmon that’s key to activating its immunity. We optimized and engineered its gene sequence and, with the use of safe microorganisms in bioreactors, we produced this protein at scale.