General Aquaculture (Prof. Dr. F. Ollevier)

Study on growth hormone in African catfish, Clarias gariepinus (Drs. Ing. Olivier Lescroart and Drs. Ivo Roelants)

This study involves:

Purification and characterisation of fish growth hormones
Radioimmuno assay techniques allowing the dosage of the growth hormones of different Clariids (Clarias gariepinus, Heterobranchus longifilis and Chrysichthys nigrodigitatus)
Study of the growth hormone secretion in African catfish in relation with the nutritional status Collaborating laboratories in the same institute are the Laboratory of Comparative Endocrinology (Prof. Kühn) and the Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology and immunological biotechnology

Development and evaluation of controlled delivery systems of biomaterials for application in Aquaculture (Drs Ivo Roelants).

An efficient "in food" delivery system of bioactive peptides has been developed for fish. Several commercially important species of finfish do not spawn in captivity or spawn in an unpredictable manner. Lack of ovulation and spawning in captivity reared finfish often reflects the absence of the brain hormone, the gonadotropin hormone releasing hormone. Therefor this new technology has now been used for the design of GnRH carrying maturation diets.

Bacterial disease of fish (Drs. Luc Grisez).

This research includes the following topics:

Biochemical identification of marine fish pathogens (genera Vibrio Pasteurella) using both standard bacteriological tests and fast identification methods.
Comparative serology of marine fish pathogens, V. Anguillarum and Pasteurella piscisida (production of antisera, LPS-purification, LPS - electrophoresis and staining, western blotting).
Plasmid purification and analysis.
Virulence studies of V. Anguillarum (purification of extracellular products, analysis of iron - sequestering system, serum resistance studies).
Histopathology and immuno-histo-chemistry.

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