SBIR-STTR Award

Disease outbreaks are being increasingly recognized as a significant constraint to aquacultureproduction and trade and are affecting economic development. Monitoring fish health for earlydetection of diseases is paramount to secure a safe and sustainable aquaculture industry.Environmental DNA (eDNA) is a promising tool that has not yet delivered its disruptive potentialfor aqualcuture health moniring. While sensitive and reliable eDNA detection techniques such asPCR are widely available the major limitation today is the quality and reliability of eDNAsampling techniques in aquaculture environments. Current sampling tools still use nitrocellulosefilters that are not designed for that purpose. As a result the sampling effort is significant and thecollected samples contain low eDNA concentrations and high amount of PCR inhibitors resultingin unreliable disease detection. In this SBIR Phase I proposal we offer the demonstration of thefeasibility and proofof concept of a novel eDNA sorbent kit that relies on chemical affinity-basedeDNA sorption rather than size exclusion used by conventional techniques. This new conceptwould allow faster more efficient and cost-effective collection and concentration of clean eDNAfrom large volumes of aquaculture water thus enabling more reliable and affordable aquatic diseasediagnostics. The novel sorbent can also be used to monitor the presence and abundance of farmedfish species but also the presence of aquatic invasive species by a simple eDNA analysis thusenabling a better management of sustainable and productive fisheries and aquaculture andimproving food safety and security.

Disease outbreaks are being increasingly recognized as a significant constraint to aquaculture production and trade and are affecting economic development. Monitoring fish health for early detection of diseases is paramount to secure a safe and sustainable aquaculture industry. Environmental DNA (eDNA) is a promising tool that has not yet delivered its disruptive potential for aquaculture health monitoring. While sensitive and reliable eDNA detection techniques such as PCR are widely available the major limitation today is the quality and reliability of eDNA sampling and purification techniques in aquaculture environments. During Phase I we demonstrated the technical feasibility of a novel nanosorbent that captures 20 times more eDNA thus eliminating false results is 5 times faster and 80% less expensive. In this Phase II we will(1) conduct additional research to understand the sample volume needed for a reliable detection of aquatic pathogens (2) develop a housing/delivery system for the nanosorbent to build a working prototype that simplifies and streamlines the eDNA workflow and (3) conduct an independent testing and validation of the prototype by academic and industry partners. The new technology is expected to significantly enhance fish health monitoring thus enabling a better management of sustainable and productive fisheries and aquaculture and improving food safety and security. Such development would also trigger a wide adoption of the eDNA technology by public and private stakeholders and a rapid growth of the eDNA testing market. In addition the proposed technology would empower citizen science programs for bioconservation and monitoring of aquatic invasive species.