Leitat investigates microbiome-based strategies to increase sustainability and resilience in aquaculture

Leitat participates in the BLUEREMEDIOMICS project, led by EMBL and CNRS with the collaboration of 23 organizations spanning academia, industry, and public interest foundations from across Europe and South Africa, which objective is advancing innovative tools and methodologies to analyze marine microbiome data. The aim is to facilitate the discovery and development of high-value, sustainable marine-derived products, processes, and services. This initiative seeks to enhance the understanding of marine ecosystems through cutting-edge techniques, thereby driving advancements in the sustainable utilization of marine resources for industrial applications.

Leitat’s contributions to BLUEREMEDIOMICS

As a consortium partner, Leitat leverages its extensive applied research expertise to assess the impacts of diet, management practices, and environmental factors on aquaculture system microbiomes and their influence on infection responses, animal health and welfare, and overall production productivity. Leitat will perform bioprospecting on wild animals to identify probiotic strains that may have been lost in aquaculture environments. These strains are targeted for their potential to induce positive effects and enhance resilience against diseases caused by prevalent pathogens.

Furthermore, Leitat will combine both culture-dependent and culture-independent methods with artificial selection to develop treatments, including consortia exhibiting strong antimicrobial activity against key fish diseases in operational aquaculture settings. Concurrently, BLUEREMEDIOMICS will investigate the prevalence of antibiotic resistance genes in both the production systems and the surrounding environment.

BLUEREMEDIOMICS is expected to facilitate increased aquaculture production under more efficient food production and reduced environmental footprint scenarios.