With the increase of the world population, the importance of the aquaculture sector has been steadily increasing. Nonetheless, the intensification of fish farming practices is often associated with a rise in disease outbreaks. In the past few years, the aquaculture industry has been putting a great effort into finding natural sources of bioactive compounds capable of increasing fish robustness. These studies require, however, a large number of animals for research purposes and high economic costs. The intestine of fish plays a key role not only in nutrition but also in the immune response. Therefore, the project AquaCell aims to develop intestinal cell lines for European seabass and Atlantic salmon, which are two species of high economic value in Europe. These cell lines will allow us to test new products and determine their potential to be included in feeds, reducing the number of fish used in animal experimentation. AquaCell intends to provide an innovative experimentation tool to the scientific community that will contribute to the sustainability of the aquaculture sector.
Following the overarching narrative of the EEA Grants, "Working together for a green, competitive and inclusive Europe”, the goals for this bilateral initiative are 1) to create synergies between the aquaculture research line of CIIMAR (Portugal) and Nord University (Norway) through exchange of technical skills and scientific know-how in the scope of the intestinal cell lines development; 2) to disseminate the acquired knowledge in scientific meetings; and 3) to promote future partnerships for joint research projects.
AquaCell – intestinal CELL lines for AQUAculture Fish
