Fisheries of the Future Pollution, climate change and biodiversity loss are all threatening our sustainable use of marine resources – at the same time we need seafood. It’s a conundrum! Could lights help by deterring the wrong fish from getting into nets? Can AI zap the virulent sea lice that plague fish farmers? And how do zebrafish bridge the gap between aquaculture and medicine? Food and Natural Resources © 2ragon/stock.adobe.com EC AV Portal podcast Spotify Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Read the transcription Transcript CORDIScovery podcast- Episode #33 - Fisheries of the future This is an AI transcription. 00:00:10:05 - 00:00:16:03 Abigail Acton This is CORDIScovery 00:00:16:05 - 00:00:37:18 Abigail Acton Hello and welcome to this episode of CORDIScovery with me, Abigail Acton. Pollution, climate change and biodiversity loss are all threatening our sustainable use of marine resources. At the same time, we need seafood. The United Nations reports the world's population is more than three times larger than it was in the mid-twentieth century, and food security is a growing concern. 00:00:37:20 - 00:01:02:17 Abigail Acton It's a conundrum. We need to harvest more food from the ocean while preserving stocks and ensuring biodiversity. One solution is fish farming. Farmed fish have one of the lowest carbon animal protein footprints and fish are nutritious, but there are drawbacks. Another solution is to use technology to enhance the fishing process so that we fish more smartly. But today's episode is not just about how fish can feed us. 00:01:02:19 - 00:01:30:22 Abigail Acton It's also about what fish can teach us. All three guests today whose work has been supported by EU funding will be able to tell us more. Welcome to Rachel Tiller, who is a chief scientist and director of Biodiversity and Area Use, a strategic research program run by SINTEF Ocean, a research institute based in Trondheim, Norway. She's keen to find a way of putting tools in the hands of fishers to make their work more productive and environmentally friendly. 00:01:31:02 - 00:01:31:23 Abigail Acton Welcome, Rachel. 00:01:32:04 - 00:01:34:11 Rachel Tiller Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here. 00:01:34:15 - 00:01:57:14 Abigail Acton And we're excited to have you. Margaret Rae is the managing director of Konree Innovation based in Galway, Ireland. The company aims to harness the latest technological approaches to improve the health and welfare of farmed fish. Hello, Margaret. Hi, Abigail. Hi, everyone. Marc Muller, now retired, was a senior assistant professor at the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research, FNRS., working at the University of Liege. 00:01:57:16 - 00:02:05:12 Abigail Acton He studies gene regulation and developmental biology in various species, mostly focusing on skeleton formation in zebrafish. Welcome, Marc. 00:02:05:15 - 00:02:06:09 Marc Muller Thanks for having. 00:02:06:09 - 00:02:19:23 Abigail Acton So, Rachel, the Smart Fish Project has put innovative tools in the hands of the fishing community to help them catch what they're intending to catch and register. The content will simply couldn't tell us what issues your project was seeking to tackle. Well, we were. 00:02:19:23 - 00:02:48:10 Rachel Tiller Looking into how we could make the fishing sector more environmentally friendly. It has a bad rap for some, and we do want to emphasize that the fishers in general are not out there trying to break any rules, but there's a lot of misconceptions about it. But there's also a lot of uncertainties around how they can change their fishing behavior in order to be more environmentally friendly in science. 00:02:48:10 - 00:03:08:24 Rachel Tiller And we also need more food from the ocean. So we're not going to stop fishing, but we need to do it in a way that we don't throw away fish we don't want. We make sure that we don't harvest too small species or that we don't take any red listed fish to fish. So fish that are on the brink of extinction. 00:03:09:01 - 00:03:33:06 Rachel Tiller And in order to do that, we need to come up with some technologies that would enable fishers to perhaps see underwater before they pulled up a catch or be able to record automatically what they caught so that we would have that information as managers or as researchers or even as just a regular person wanting to buy some fish to have the knowledge about what fish they're eating. 00:03:33:08 - 00:03:51:19 Abigail Acton Excellent. Thank you very much. I would imagine also that the Fishers would be really glad to have these tools at their fingertips. As you say yourself, I mean, you know, they're not out there to game the system in any way. And I'm sure they're, you know, horrified at the amount of bycatch they catch accidentally as well. So I could imagine that this is something that's very welcome. 00:03:51:21 - 00:04:05:00 Abigail Acton You're quite right. Fish are needed to provide a secure source of food, but environmental degradation is a problem. So what is your your project actually doing to to address the challenges that you've just mentioned? Can you give me some examples? 00:04:05:02 - 00:04:39:07 Rachel Tiller Well, we were looking at if you look in the water, for example, because we were looking both in the water and on deck. So in the water, some of the technologies we were developing were, for example, a system where we could have a camera inside the trawl so that the fisher would be able to see like really good quality while his actually on the boat, whether or not you know, how big they were are they're just like juvenile fish are so baby fish or are these like the exact the size fish he wants And if he c said, okay, this is a good composition, you can actually close that trawl and start pulling it down. 00:04:39:09 - 00:04:45:07 Rachel Tiller But if he sees that these are just small ones, he'll just keep it open so that they can keep swimming through it. 00:04:45:09 - 00:05:08:07 Abigail Acton And from that comes to just a bit, because you have got a question that comes to mind. I mean, I'm seeing like, yeah, thousands of frantically moving fish, very agitated in an increasingly small environment. How does your camera actually manage to capture the necessary images to inform the fishermen? Is it that at the beginning there are fewer fish and they can see that the trend is going to be negative and that they should let them just go? 00:05:08:09 - 00:05:11:17 Abigail Acton You know, how does that make sense of that turmoil? 00:05:11:19 - 00:05:35:03 Rachel Tiller Well, it's some of these have really, really good quality. So we have developed one that's called trawl monitor, and that's a really high quality camera that I can actually see in really turbulent waters as well. And also remember, the fishers are experts in this. They do know what fish they want and they can see that. So so we're giving them the power to make those decisions. 00:05:35:03 - 00:05:53:06 Rachel Tiller It's beneficial for them as well. If they have a catch with two small fish, they will get a lower price for that fish. So they do want that perfect composition, but you do. Reardon There's been a lot of development in camera technologies just over the last five or six years. Right. And see that. 00:05:53:08 - 00:06:02:18 Abigail Acton Super. Can you give me some other examples? Like and, you know, for example, you've got a fascinating idea of actually how to deter unwanted species from coming into the net. Tell me about that one, Rachel. 00:06:02:24 - 00:06:25:07 Rachel Tiller Absolutely. Yeah. No, we're we've been doing a lot of experiments with with lights. So it's one of the technologies is called the Lifelines. It basically illuminates the fishing gear so you can so it into the net, so you can have it hanging on it. And what it does is that you can trigger these from the vessel. So again, it gives the power to the fisher and he might be able to see that. 00:06:25:09 - 00:06:41:03 Rachel Tiller okay. We're getting a mixed catch here of two species and we really want one of them, but we want to get rid of the other one because it could be red listed or it could be too small to be. It could be something you don't have a quota for. And in that case, they can trigger these lights. 00:06:41:03 - 00:07:10:03 Rachel Tiller And there are some specific wavelengths that of life. Basically this green or it's red or yellow, whichever it when they activate that, it can encourage some fish to either say like, hey, let's move toward satellite or let's move away from that light. So when you combine that with the technologies of opening parts of the trial, it well, you might get like some of these species to go further down where there's an escape route and the others might want to just keep on moving upwards where they're basically trapped. 00:07:10:05 - 00:07:19:00 Rachel Tiller So it's a good way of selecting and it's still under development. We're not done testing this, but we see some really promising results. 00:07:19:01 - 00:07:36:07 Abigail Acton I think it's absolutely fascinating. I really do. And you are actually seeing some species are attracted, for example, to a red light in on some a deterred. It's not interesting. Now, what I mean, of course, it begs the question, what's the motivation? And, you know, what's the mechanism in the fish that causes some species to be attracted to have a green light and others to want to run away from it or swim away, rather? 00:07:36:08 - 00:07:42:18 Abigail Acton Okay. Can you give me an example of some other innovations that you're coming up with? Because I just love all this. I think this is brilliant. 00:07:42:18 - 00:08:03:12 Rachel Tiller And yeah, so now we're still in the water. But if we think about what happens once you get the fish on board, one of the innovations we're working on is with artificial intelligence and cameras again, and it's about being able to basically count every fish as it comes on board. And the reason why this is important is because we don't know what's in the ocean right now. 00:08:03:17 - 00:08:27:19 Rachel Tiller We don't know how many species, we don't know what kind of species, we don't know how much we're catching, and we don't know how the fish are changing behavior because of climate change. So are we suddenly seeing new species in an area where this automatic catch registration one? It takes away so much work for the Fishers, they don't have to sit and manually guesstimate how much fish is coming on board. 00:08:27:22 - 00:08:50:06 Rachel Tiller They're really good, but they only have about a 10% variation. They're allowed to have though, with this automatic catch registration. And you're saying you see unofficially intelligence basically develop these digital twins of all the fish, so that when it sees the fish, it'd be like all I've seen a million images of this cod. I know that's a cod, even if it doesn't have a head or slacken, have its tail. 00:08:50:07 - 00:09:04:11 Rachel Tiller Right. So and then we can basically send that information just automatically lock that information and send it off and the fishers don't have to worry about it. If something is wrong, that's the program's fault and not there, so they can't be punished for it. 00:09:04:13 - 00:09:10:24 Abigail Acton That's honestly brilliant. They must be really. I mean, the idea of having to do that manually. Gosh, yeah, yeah. 00:09:11:01 - 00:09:13:09 Rachel Tiller You would think they're happy. They are not happy. 00:09:13:15 - 00:09:21:24 Abigail Acton Isn't that interesting? I would be like, my God, I don't have to count my Pollock over again. Really? Okay, so there's a little bit of pushback. 00:09:21:24 - 00:09:32:08 Rachel Tiller A lot of pushback. You got to think of this, though. This is for a lot of them, especially this part onboard the vessel. It could feel like a big brother kind of feeling like, why do you don't trust me? 00:09:32:11 - 00:09:33:06 Abigail Acton Right. Okay. 00:09:33:11 - 00:09:36:04 Rachel Tiller Why do you think I'm not reporting the correct numbers. 00:09:36:06 - 00:09:41:22 Abigail Acton And it's not that at all. It's not that at all. You're just putting tools at their fingertips that's going to save time and make the whole system more accurate. 00:09:41:23 - 00:09:53:20 Rachel Tiller More accurate, more effective. But it's also a problem like their sharing is is going to cost a lot. Yeah. These are very real fears. I mean, putting artificial intelligence, a camera vision, then new equipment onboard a vessel. 00:09:53:22 - 00:10:05:12 Abigail Acton Yeah, no, I get it. It's funny. I mean, we're so tuned in to the whole notion of AI as being a subplot for some sort of horror story. But in that, of course, it's a very useful tool for us, really. Rachel, this is fascinating. 00:10:05:14 - 00:10:22:02 Rachel Tiller Yeah, I would just want to say that just about that, because it's like everyone is so excited about AI is ChatGBT, And finally, for me at least, I'm like, Okay, we're using AI for something practical. We're using it for something that can save the environment, not just write a resume or a travel itinerary. 00:10:22:08 - 00:10:34:00 Abigail Acton Yeah, absolutely not frivolous, because quite often when you read those kind of techniques, you think, okay, very nice. They're kind of frivolous, but this not. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Rachel what got you into all of this in the first place. Why? Why are you doing this? 00:10:34:05 - 00:10:55:05 Rachel Tiller Well, I am. I am a researcher and I do love the ocean. I work in SINTEF Ocean. Our job is to come up with technology for a better society. But I'm also in the Fisheries Technology group. And. And I chose to be in fisheries technology because I do love fisheries. I'm from a fishing family. My entire family going and generations back have been fishers. 00:10:55:07 - 00:11:18:09 Rachel Tiller And I want to be able to work closely with them to come up with solutions. I want to be able to change the misconception of fishers just being the big villains of the ocean. I mean, they're doing it humanity, I would say a great favor because we do need more food from the ocean, but we also need to be able to just give them give someone proof that they're not the bad people out there. 00:11:18:11 - 00:11:38:15 Rachel Tiller But in general, you know, 99% of them are doing just fine. And it's really it's unfortunate that you do have some that are cheating the system that are making them all look bad. And I want to be part of that solution coming up with tools for them to be able to demonstrate that they are following the rules, they are contributing to a better society. 00:11:38:15 - 00:11:45:10 Rachel Tiller They are contributing to healthy food at a good price that is climate friendly compared to a lot of other food sources. 00:11:45:12 - 00:12:03:18 Abigail Acton Rachel, thank you very much. You're quite right. Fish is a food source that we're going to need more of as the population grows. So, Margaret, you were involved with fish farming, so it seems logical to turn to you next. The Game Changer Project is using innovative technology to reduce the outbreaks of sea lice, a virulent pest that's holding back the aquaculture industry. 00:12:03:24 - 00:12:05:24 Abigail Acton So, Margaret, please tell us about sea lice. What are they and what kind of damage can they do? 00:12:08:13 - 00:12:33:13 Margaret Rae Hi Abigail and thanks again for having me on. Okay, so sea lice are tiny little crustaceans. That parasitized salmon are indeed actually trout as well at sea. And of course, these are natural pests. They're naturally found in the environment. But in aquaculture, simply because you've corralled fish in one location, they tend to get out of out of proportion to the the situation itself. 00:12:33:18 - 00:12:54:06 Margaret Rae And so what they do is they cause little wounds on the fish. Those wounds themselves can get secondary bacterial or viral infections, which then also lead the fish to feel stressed and stressful. It's just not a good thing. And salmon producers are looking for ways in which to control those sea lice in the water for the betterment of the fish. 00:12:54:06 - 00:13:00:18 Margaret Rae Once you're basically in health, a happier, healthier fish. For them, it is a much better product. At the end of the day. 00:13:01:12 - 00:13:18:22 Abigail Acton No indeed, we all want happy, healthy fish. Absolutely. I know that they are also, it's a challenge biologically, but there's also a lice limitation level set by regulatory authorities. What is what is a license? I mean, obviously it means limit to the amount of lice. But yes, is that stringent? Is it difficult to adhere to? 00:13:19:00 - 00:13:43:05 Margaret Rae Yes, it is quite stringent. Basically, it's there to protect, obviously, the health and welfare of aquaculture at fish, but also wild salmon. And so the regulatory agencies and everywhere salmon is produced at sea, basically there are regulatory limits set and those limits are in Ireland and in Norway and Scotland. 00:13:43:09 - 00:14:07:05 Margaret Rae In most places around the world, it's 0.5 female sea lice per fish. Basically for most of the year. And then during the spring time, the time in which wild salmon are going in and out of rivers and estuaries, it's that much lower is around 0.2 females, sea ice per per fish, basically. So it's it's quite stringent, particularly in the springtime. 00:14:07:11 - 00:14:14:09 Abigail Acton Yeah, right. And I imagine that that must be a massive headache for fish farmers. So how are lice controlled at the moment. 00:14:14:22 - 00:14:07:05 Margaret Rae So there's a lot of different ways at the moment to which are most controlled and what they tend to do is they tend to rotate those treatments so that we're not developing what's called a super lice because that's what happened in the past. 00:14:28:02 - 00:14:54:16 Margaret Rae So unless we got very they overcame, let's say, different types of medicines that were used for them and it bred a super lice, they became resistant. That became resistant, yeah. So they don't really want that to happen again. And so they tend to use different types of treatments, So they tend to use more mechanical treatments at the moment where they pump up the fish from the salmon pen and they bring it onto what's called a whale boat. 00:14:54:18 - 00:15:16:24 Margaret Rae And then on the whale boat, they treat them in different ways and then they put them back into the salmon pen again, which sounds quite stressful for the fish. Absolutely. Yeah, it's quite effective in terms of the sea lice. However, it's a temporary effect. Normally within anything from 6 to 8 to maybe 12 weeks, it will reoccur again. 00:15:17:01 - 00:15:41:03 Margaret Rae And then there are medical treatments, there are feeds that are out there that boost the immune systems. Of course there are antibiotics, but antibiotics are normally used only for infections and bacterial or viral infections and actually are practically not used to toll anymore. So there's just a lot of different kinds of treatments out there that they tend to use in a rotational basis. 00:15:41:05 - 00:15:57:01 Abigail Acton Right. They all sound a little bit like this. What a temporary cure is for the situation. Yes, it is being considered as inevitable. So it's like a sort of almost like, you know, trying to hold back a tide a little bit here. I think it sounds hard work. It also sounds quite expensive in terms of personnel, is there's quite a lot of work that you've been describing that. 00:15:57:03 - 00:16:15:16 Margaret Rae Yes, that's right. Well, first of all, you have to to to book or reserve a whale boat. And that needs to come you know, it needs to go from wherever it's bases or wherever it was last booked, basically. So that needs to transit to you. So there's a time delay there before it can get to you. So quite expensive. 00:16:15:18 - 00:16:33:04 Margaret Rae I you know, depending on where they've come from and in what jurisdiction they are, it can be anything in and around €15,000 a day. But that really depends, you know, in different just jurisdictions and things. And you also have to pay for the transit costs. 00:16:33:18 - 00:16:30:05 Abigail Acton Right. And then there's the fuel. Also, they're getting to import and fuel. Yeah, exactly. 00:16:36:24 - 00:16:41:02 Margaret Rae And the manning, you know, the the people who are on board, the skilled individuals to her on board. 00:16:42:18 - 00:16:54:01 Abigail Acton and all for eight weeks respite at best case scenario sounds quite intense, you know. Okay. Well, we can clearly see what the thinking is. So now tell me a little bit about what you've been doing under the project. 00:16:56:02 - 00:17:17:05 Margaret Rae The Game Ghanger project was funded by the WomenTechEU. So that was fantastic. And doing the TechEU was all about the deep tech companies. And so we have a science led approach to the way we want to reliably manage and control sea lice. So you will never get rid of sea lice. They're natural pests and they in the normal natural environment. 00:17:17:07 - 00:17:36:04 Margaret Rae And so you will never, you know, completely eradicate, nor do you want to completely eradicate because of course they're they're naturally found and in the environment. So what we are doing is a science led approach. I had the opportunity a couple of years ago to sit back and kind of really think about a science led approach to this. 00:17:36:04 - 00:18:04:14 Margaret Rae So we've developed a hardware device that we place in the water. It's non-chemical and it's not polluting those things that are highly appealing to the to the some farmers we are patenting at the moment. This is very limited in what I can say, but really we will be in the salmon pen in a 24 hour a day, seven day a week basis and actively dealing with the problem in the salmon pen itself and of course the salmon pen is at sea. 00:18:04:14 - 00:18:19:18 Margaret Rae So it's a harsh environment. So there are a couple of things that we need to respect as well. So we need to respect the pen and not damage the salmon pen. And of course not harm the fish as well. So and effectively deal with the problem now. 00:18:20:11 - 00:18:41:14 Abigail Acton Seems like a big ask. So basically you've got a way of not using systems that remove the fish from their pens.They can stay where they are. Yes. So that's obviously better for the fish, less time consuming and everything else we've just discussed. You do mentioned machine learning and you do mention artificial intelligence. So I guess you've got a system which involves both of these things. Can you tell us just a little bit more about that? 00:18:41:14 - 00:19:09:24 Margaret Rae Sure, yeah. With those kind of things, really, it's all about being able to find the sea lice, you know, and then, of course, count the sea lice, too, because you obviously want to be you want to understand if there's a large if there's a large loading of sea lice present and, you know, this can inform you about your kind of treatment side of things, and then it can also inform your salmon producer as well. 00:19:10:01 - 00:19:32:12 Margaret Rae So at the end of the day, we also need to prove to our salmon producer that we're actually finding these and that they're actually treating them to mean and reducing their numbers. So having a camera system in the water that allows you to see sea lice and count them is a really important and that's exactly what we're doing. 00:19:32:12 - 00:19:51:13 Margaret Rae So we're developing a camera system that will allow us to to see the sea lice count them. And of course, there's lots of different stages of sea lice. So it's the ability to say to see the different types of stages. And that can also help you determine really the loading. That's actually in the water itself. 00:19:52:07 - 00:20:02:12 Abigail Acton Okay.So that goes back to what you were saying about the parameters being females per fish.So, you know, it's a lifecycle thing, isn't it? And see, when the population scene is about to explode or not. Yeah. Okay, excellent. That's right. 00:20:03:22 - 00:20:13:13 Margaret Rae And of course the females produce up to a thousand eggs a month, you know, so. Yeah. So yeah, yeah. It's therefore it's all about the female. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:20:14:20 - 00:20:34:05 Abigail Acton Like it was about the mosquitoes in a previous episode. Yeah, indeed. And it's interesting because Rachel also has been talking about cameras and nets and a way of using very, very high resolution images to determine what's actually going on under the water. So this is obviously a great a great ability to do that. So game changer by name. Game changer by nature then Margaret. 00:20:35:06 - 00:20:46:05 Margaret Rae Hopefully so. Fingers crossed we're in the starting stages of of doing some field trials.So, yeah, we're waiting of those field trials to show how effective it will be 00:20:46:17 - 00:20:50:12 Abigail Acton Okay, excellent. That sounds very good. Does anyone have any questions for MAargaret? Yes, Rachel. 00:20:50:24 - 00:21:01:19 Margaret Tiller Yeah, actually. Margaret I was just wondering, we are innovations have any other benefits for the environment in terms of how they will reduce the impact it has on the marine environment? 00:21:01:17 - 00:21:29:17 Margaret Rae yeah. I think that there are a lot of different companies that are out there. They're using AI for so many different things. Personally, I feel that, you know, you can use AI to look maybe from a microscopic level at things called harmful algal blooms or indeed just, you know, monitoring the water. But until you get there, there are a lot of different companies out there that are doing that at the moment and then, of course, pressuring lots of other parameters. 00:21:29:19 - 00:21:56:17 Margaret Rae For instance, temperature, because temperature affects oxygen levels in the water. If there's less oxygen in the water, then you know, it's it's not good either for the fish. And so being able to monitor the oxygen levels, salinity levels and I suppose chlorophyl just from a perspective of seeing harmful algal blooms and harmful can be anything from just a lot of algae in the water. 00:21:56:17 - 00:22:22:10 Margaret Rae Microalgae in the water that overnight take oxygen from the water. So they respire overnight taking oxygen from the water and of course overnight they literally can suffocate the fish in that way. So some other companies are out there looking at those kind of things. And then of course, another big one for salmon producers or any kind of fish producers at sea would be jellyfish. 00:22:22:12 - 00:22:47:17 Margaret Rae So equally in the same way that you have micro algal blooms, you can also have jellyfish blooms basically, and jellyfish can come in with their poisonous tentacles and things, and they can either begin to consume the smaller fish or they can act and sting the gills, for instance. And then once again the fish can breed properly and suffocate. 00:22:47:19 - 00:22:55:14 Margaret Rae So I'm pretty sure that there are other companies out there that are looking at those particular issues. And of course, AI is fantastic for that. 00:22:56:24 - 00:23:17:04 Abigail Acton Wonderful. It's it's always useful to hear about, hey, AI been good for some things as well as, you know, this sort of weird dystopian future we're managing to scare ourselves with as well. Yeah, this is excellent. 00:23:04:14 - 00:23:17:04 Abigail Acton Thank you very much. And I suppose all of these things are the idea of prevention being better than cure, so they avoid the use of perhaps chemical processes and so on by anticipating the problem rather than trying to deal with it. Yes, Mark. Yes. You have an observation or a question, please. 00:23:17:04 - 00:23:33:06 Marc Muller Yes. I wanted to ask which phase of the lifecycle of the solvent is actually affected by by these sea lice? Is this also in only in seawater when they are in the big cages, or is it also in the youngest age of 29, fresh water? 00:23:33:10 - 00:24:02:08 Margaret Rae No, it's really for sea lice. It's really the when they're put out to sea, what they call the ongoing stages. Indeed. And in freshwater, there are other life species in freshwater, for instance, in regular species. And you will find that in, for instance, still water in lakes and things and mostly affects trout. So some countries for instance, that for angling they would tend to rear trout and that for angling. 00:24:02:10 - 00:24:28:14 Margaret Rae And so some freshwater species you can find of lice that will affect lots of different fish species in freshwater itself. But not to the extent I think for instance at sea there's a particularly difficult sea life species is called like the salmon as and this is the one that really causes a lot of stress to the to salmon. 00:24:28:14 - 00:24:42:15 Margaret Rae It's in at sea. Other species like Regulus, the sometimes the fish just tends to shrug it off. You know, it's so since the think, it's not so bad, you know. 00:24:44:06 - 00:24:59:12 Abigail Acton Okay. And thank you very, very much. That's excellent. Thanks. Margaret, I'm going to turn to you, Mark. Your project, BioMedaqu is at the interface of aquaculture and biomedicine.They're not fields that I've actually thought of as complimentary before. So what can you tell us how the two domains relate to each other? 00:24:59:14 - 00:25:30:21 Marc Muller Yes, of course. The coding part is actually the fact that fish are vertebrates. So fish have bones and so fish have jaws, the fish have a face, fish have a vertebral column just like people. So in that respect, they are quite the same. On the other hand, it's also becoming more and more clear that mechanisms and a process is going into bone development and bone formation that are similar in fish and humans. 00:25:30:23 - 00:25:59:07 Marc Muller Now, if you talk about skeletal pathologies or skeletal problems in your movements, you talk about maybe craniofacial deformities that you see in kids or animals for osteoporosis, which leads to bone fractures or osteoarthritis, which elderly people also feel the pain in their veins. these are problems in our aging populations, but these are also problems that we can find in aquaculture species. 00:25:59:07 - 00:26:07:12 Marc Muller So in that respect, seeing that the mechanisms are the same, you can study the same thing in these different species. 00:26:07:17 - 00:26:21:20 Abigail Acton Interesting. And I know that you particularly are looking at zebrafish, so you really are in the middle, you're looking at zebrafish and you're giving information back to on the medical side of things, but also to the aquaculture side of things. Tell me a little bit about why zebrafish are so central to this. 00:26:21:22 - 00:26:54:18 Marc Muller Yes, indeed. So actually, for biomedical researchers working with patients, they obviously also need a model, an animal model, to study things that you cannot study in patients. And the zebrafish is increasingly used for that because it's as I said, mechanisms are common, the genome is quite similar. And so what you can do is actually generate models for each of these different pathologies that I was talking about in zebrafish. 00:26:54:20 - 00:27:08:20 Marc Muller And then you can study this in the zebrafish because it is a fast developing fish actually. So you can look at the larvae and use the larvae to study them and the larvae are transparent, which is also a very big advantage. 00:27:08:22 - 00:27:18:08 Abigail Acton Right? Excellence is like a window into these vital processes of development that are going wrong. Right. And that's of interest of also to the aquaculture industry because. 00:27:18:10 - 00:27:55:14 Marc Muller Then we are coming to the to the aquaculture researchers who are actually working with much larger fish. These aquaculture fish are much larger of course, because we want to eat them and they also grow older. And an important difference is also that you have a huge amount of larvae when a single female can lay thousands of eggs. And so you have a huge population where you can do very nice feeding experiments for examples or environmental studies of temperature or sea lice, for example, effect of on the population and on the skeleton. 00:27:55:16 - 00:28:19:13 Marc Muller So that's how we began to we came to tools to define this project where we really thought that we would bring together biomedical people studying human patients, zebrafish, and people studying bigger fish, aquaculture, fish, and to see how they can interact, how they can help each other. And that was the whole idea, actually. 00:28:19:15 - 00:28:25:05 Abigail Acton I think it's a fantastic concept. I really do. So tell me some of your findings. What did you actually discover? 00:28:25:07 - 00:28:39:16 Marc Muller Yeah, well, the project was actually an international training network, so we had 15 Ph.D. students working on different aspects. So it was very broadly actually in terms of subjects that we were studying. 00:28:39:18 - 00:28:55:20 Abigail Acton I was interested in what you said about the generation of mutant cell lines for the genes, looking at the reasons for early onset osteoporosis or osteoarthritis. So I understand that you were you were curious about the homeostasis. Can you explain a little bit what homeostasis means and why this was of interest for you? 00:28:55:21 - 00:29:24:21 Marc Muller Okay. When I talk about homeostasis, it's a term that maybe not everybody knows. Homeostasis is actually how to maintain the actual state of affairs. So in terms of bone skeleton, this means actually bone is continuously reconfigured and remodeled during the entire life. So bones are all the time destroyed and rebuilt. And so you actually have to have an equilibrium there to keep a healthy skeleton still working. 00:29:25:02 - 00:29:44:00 Marc Muller So that's what I mean by homeostasis. So during aging, during the life cycle, to keep a functioning skeleton is exposed to development, which means that from the egg at the beginning, you have to build the skeleton. First of all, you have to keep it healthy. So these are the two aspects that can be covered. 00:29:44:02 - 00:29:53:05 Abigail Acton Okay. And you were talking about the vertebral column being involved in some of the most prominent skeletal deformities. I think you are looking at dietary phosphate levels, for example. 00:29:53:07 - 00:30:17:10 Marc Muller yes. You're heading right to this to to project depth. Yes, of course. So bone is actually made of calcium phosphate. So phosphate means phosphorus. And so several of the students actually were studying the effect of phosphorus in the diet. You have to bring the phosphorus to the diet of fish because they cannot get it from the environment. 00:30:17:14 - 00:30:36:22 Marc Muller And so what we found out is actually that the thing around with the concentration or the amount of phosphorus in the feed, you can influence the structure, the internal structure of the bone. You can have very solid bone, very strong bone or much weaker bone, depending on the on the phosphorus, limiting the amount of phosphorus to put into the diet. 00:30:37:03 - 00:30:50:06 Marc Muller And in the end, we saw that in zebrafish, we saw that in Solomon and probably also in humans. So that's how we will now go on to see eventually we can use that to treat some of the human conditions as well. 00:30:50:08 - 00:31:03:01 Abigail Acton So excellent. And in fact, that leads me on to my next question to you. Thank you. Now, the project is over. I mean, what is going to be the work that's going to be done on the shoulders of the project going forward? So what's the next step? 00:31:03:03 - 00:31:29:11 Marc Muller Actually, the first thing will be to follow up with this for these phosphorus studies. Of course, we also, as I said before, some of the genes that we identified that are important that we showed are important in zebrafish. We can now integrate them in genetic testing for human patients if they have osteoporosis or some effect. A lot of our results also concerned feed. 00:31:29:13 - 00:31:44:10 Marc Muller So the diet. And so we have been studying the effect of vitamin D of sea labeaume of probiotics on skeletal health and all these can eventually be transferred to human patients in a similar situation. 00:31:44:16 - 00:31:55:04 Abigail Acton So basically what we're doing now, which is wonderful, is you're taking what you've discovered and now it's kind of like a more practical phase where you can start implementing some of the things that you've discovered and maybe taking those into new levels of testing. 00:31:55:06 - 00:32:09:12 Marc Muller Indeed, we want to go a little bit further into the testing on humans. And we also have some substances that we identified to be beneficial to bone health. And this can also now go into more clinical trials if you want. 00:32:09:17 - 00:32:21:00 Abigail Acton Excellent. Well, that sounds wonderful. That's really super. I think that's a lovely example of some strange well, to me, strange anyway, this symbiosis that's come come together really well, thank you so much. Yes, Margaret, 00:32:21:09 - 00:32:46:07 Margaret Rae It's a fascinating market. It's really, really fascinating. I'm, you know, just thinking that in in much the same way that you're inspecting the zebrafish larvae, I'm just wondering, can you also look at salmon eggs and do kind of a, you know, rapid inspection and detection of manatees? And so, you know, weed out the ones that are not going to do so well. 00:32:46:09 - 00:32:52:10 Marc Muller I don't see a problem in principle. I don't know if the acts are transparent. 00:32:52:12 - 00:32:57:21 Marc Muller & Margaret Rae Solving to a certain level. You know, if you if you shine light through them, you can see hold them against life. Yeah. 00:32:57:23 - 00:33:00:07 Marc Muller Okay. Yeah. So yeah. 00:33:00:09 - 00:33:07:00 Abigail Acton Well, you could have some sort of luminosity screening going on there. I mean, if you knew what you were looking for within the eggs and then you found a way to actually. 00:33:07:02 - 00:33:15:12 Marc Muller Zebrafish eggs are completely transparent, so. So you can really see under the microscope, which might not be the case for saumon. I have never seen saumon eggs. 00:33:15:12 - 00:33:17:23 Abigail Acton Okay. I think I have in sushi, actually. 00:33:18:00 - 00:33:31:21 Marc Muller I have to say, but I don't think they are so bad. But obviously, yes, you can you can do quite a lot of things. You can also do a lot of life staining that you could do eventually and then fluorescent staining and do fluorescent microscopy. 00:33:31:21 - 00:33:32:23 Abigail Acton What do you mean by light staining? 00:33:32:23 - 00:33:53:00 Marc Muller Mock life stating they are such a certain substances like has seen, for example, that can stain the bone directly. It goes directly into the animal, the stains, the bone, for example, and the bone becomes green fluorescent. So you can see it under a fluorescent microscope so that that could be in an option as well. 00:33:53:02 - 00:34:01:17 Abigail Acton To make things apparent. Yeah, because I guess it must be quite expensive for the aquaculture industry to have fish that then become deformed as they grow. It must be quite useful to be able to weed out the ones. 00:34:01:17 - 00:34:23:23 Marc Muller Yes, yes, definitely. Yes. I think they screen them at several stages, so some are screened at larval stages, so there's a big loss there anyway, and especially also due to that will deformities, But some of them actually happen later on and that's much more difficult and much more costly because you have to feed them until you've done them away. 00:34:24:00 - 00:34:41:13 Abigail Acton So yeah, Yeah. And you've done all that lice prevention work as well for a reason. Obviously it's like you two might have something to talk about that that sounds like that. That would be probably quite a, quite a nice nice avenue of exploration. Could well be to try and save the money and also save the fish. Okay. Thank you very much. 00:34:41:13 - 00:35:00:12 Abigail Acton Well, that's absolutely fascinating. I've really enjoyed this. I think that I've learned a lot with regards to how AI is really reshaping both aquaculture and wild fishing. And I think it's really interesting, Mark, what you've been saying about what we can learn just from from zebrafish, which don't necessarily immediately leap out at us as being something very similar to ourselves. 00:35:00:18 - 00:35:05:05 Abigail Acton So I want to thank you very much for being with me today and for for sharing your ideas. Thank you. Thank you very. 00:35:05:05 - 00:35:07:17 Marc Muller Much. Thanks for having us. Very interesting. 00:35:07:21 - 00:35:09:18 Rachel Tiller Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. 00:35:09:24 - 00:35:37:02 Abigail Acton Super. Thank you very much. Bye bye. Bye. If you've enjoyed this podcast, follow us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts or whatever streaming service you use, and check out the podcast home page on the CORDIS website. Subscribe to make sure the hottest research on EU funded science isn't passing you by. We've talked about cutting edge sensors that can detect whether a flying mosquito is carrying Zika virus and how resources on the moon could help us explore space. 00:35:37:04 - 00:35:55:12 Abigail Acton In our last 32 episodes, there will be something there to tweak your curiosity. Perhaps you want to know what other EU funding projects are doing to make the use of aquatic resources more sustainable. The CORDIS website will give you an insight into the results of projects funded by Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe that are working in the area. 00:35:55:14 - 00:36:12:09 Abigail Acton The website has articles and interviews that explore the results of research being conducted in a very broad range of domains and subjects from cubits to qubits. See what I did there? There is something in there for you. Maybe you're involved in a project or would like to apply for funding. Take a look at what others are doing in your domain. 00:36:12:11 - 00:36:23:20 Abigail Acton So come and check out the research that's revealing what makes our world tick. We're always happy to hear from you. Drop us a line. Editorial at cordis dot europa, dot EU. Until next time. The UN reports the world’s population is more than three times larger than it was in the mid 20th century, and food security is a growing concern. So, we need to harvest more food from the ocean, while preserving stocks and ensuring biodiversity. One solution is fish farming. Farmed fish have one of the lowest carbon, animal protein footprints, and fish are nutritious. But there are drawbacks. Another solution is to use technology to enhance the fishing process so that we fish more smartly. But this episode is not just about how fish can feed us – it’s also about what fish can teach us. Our three guests whose work has been supported by EU funding, can tell you more! Rachel Tiller is a chief scientist and director of biodiversity and area use, a strategic research programme run by SINTEF Ocean, based in Trondheim, Norway. She was the coordinator of the SMARTFISH project, which has put innovative tools in the hands of the fishing community to help them catch what they are intending to catch and register the content more simply. Margaret Rae is the managing director of Konree Innovation, based in Galway, Ireland. The company aims to harness the latest technological approaches to improve the health and welfare of farmed fish. It hosted the Game Changer project which used innovative technology to reduce the outbreaks of sea lice, a virulent pest that is holding back the aquaculture industry. Marc Muller, now retired, was a senior assistant professor at the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS), working at the University of Liège. He studies gene regulation and developmental biology in various species, mostly focusing on skeleton formation in zebrafish, and coordinated the BioMedaqu project. Happy to hear from you! If you have any feedback, we’re always happy to hear from you! Send us any comments, questions or suggestions to: editorial@cordis.europa.eu Keywords CORDIScovery, CORDIS, SMARTFISH, BioMedaqu, Game Changer, fish, zebrafish, salmon, fish farming, food security, ocean, marine resources
