Dynamic interactions between health and growth in salmon: The role of insulin like factor binding proteins

Aquaculture is the fastest growing food sector globally and during 2016 global consumption of farmed fish and shellfish exceeded that of wild caught fish. In UK Atlantic salmon aquaculture is worth >£1 Billion to the economy, however to improve sustainability and expansion two key challenges are improved fish growth and fish health. These two processes do not act independently and our recent results indicate that the insulin like growth factor pathway (specifically the IGF binding proteins) may play a key role in cross talk between these two systems. This PhD will examine gene function, both in vivo (Atlantic salmon) and in vitro (salmon cell culture) using state of the art gene editing approaches (CRISPR/cas9) to define how energy allocation is regulated by the IGF system during immune stimulation.
The project is highly relevant for improving farmed fish production and also links with the international consortium to annotate the salmon genome (Functional Annotation of All salmonid Genomes, FAASG, https://www.faasg.org/ and EU H2020 project AQUAFAANG, https://www.aqua-faang.eu/ ), where both supervisors and partners are key members. An international partner in France will enhance the studentship by assisting with aspects of cell culture and immune function.
The student will be based within the "Scottish Fish Immunology Research Centre" at Aberdeen and have regular visits to the partner institute at University of Edinburgh, Roslin Institute. The student will have the opportunity for additional training at the international partner labs for example, INRAE, France.