AQUATIC BIOLOGICALS is the first Marine Biotechnology Company in Greece devoted to the prevention of fish diseases in aquaculture.
It develops customized autogenous vaccines (a process that is validated and ISO certified), phage therapy products and provides advanced diagnostic services to the Aquaculture industry.
AQUATIC BIOLOGICALS is based on a team of enthusiasts with many years of scientific experience on the field and collaboration with Mediterranean fish farms.
AQUATIC BIOLOGICALS is a spin-off company of the Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture, of the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research
IRIDA (www.irida.com) has become the major shareholder of Aquatic Biologicals which is now enabled to bring to life its vision providing eco-friendly aquaculture health solutions, partnering with a solid company in the Mediterranean fish feed sector. The need to reduce antibiotics use, as well as Aquatic Biological’s specialization in autogenous vaccines and phage therapy, go along with IRIDA’s goal, to provide “end-to-end” solutions to its partners, that work well both for them and the environment.
It develops customized autogenous vaccines (a process that is validated and ISO certified), phage therapy products and provides advanced diagnostic services to the Aquaculture industry.
AQUATIC BIOLOGICALS is based on a team of enthusiasts with many years of scientific experience on the field and collaboration with Mediterranean fish farms.
AQUATIC BIOLOGICALS is a spin-off company of the Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture, of the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research
IRIDA (www.irida.com) has become the major shareholder of Aquatic Biologicals which is now enabled to bring to life its vision providing eco-friendly aquaculture health solutions, partnering with a solid company in the Mediterranean fish feed sector. The need to reduce antibiotics use, as well as Aquatic Biological’s specialization in autogenous vaccines and phage therapy, go along with IRIDA’s goal, to provide “end-to-end” solutions to its partners, that work well both for them and the environment.
Autogenous vaccines
Autogenous vaccines are customized vaccines which are produced in order to be used when commercial vaccines are not available. They are produced using the pathogenic microorganisms isolated from the affected farms and they are used under veterinarian control in the same farms. In aquaculture there is a limited number of commercially available vaccines since licensing procedures are costly and time consuming. For bass and bream there are only two commercially available vaccines.
Phage therapy
Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria. They occur naturally at the environment and constitute the most populous microbial group. They are highly host specific, meaning that they infect a single bacterial species (sometimes few strains of a certain bacterial species) and of course they are harmless to other organisms. They are self-propagated when found in an environment with the bacterial target and self-restricted when their target is eliminated. They are nature’s oldest and more efficient predators. Bacteriophages were discovered before antibiotics. Their use in controlling bacterial infection in humans (phage therapy) was abandoned after the triumph of antibiotics following World War II but has recently regained attention since phage therapy has been successfully employed to treat multi-drug resistant bacteria in human medicine.
In Aquaculture, phage applications have enormous potential since phages can selectively exclude unwanted pathogenic bacteria from delicate environments such as those of fish hatcheries without affecting beneficial bacteria and thus disturbing microbial equilibrium and they leave no residues since they are self-restricted. Phage therapy is a natural biological way of controlling bacteria that could be compatible with organic farming.
Watch a video how phages can lyse bacteria in time lapse
In Aquaculture, phage applications have enormous potential since phages can selectively exclude unwanted pathogenic bacteria from delicate environments such as those of fish hatcheries without affecting beneficial bacteria and thus disturbing microbial equilibrium and they leave no residues since they are self-restricted. Phage therapy is a natural biological way of controlling bacteria that could be compatible with organic farming.
Watch a video how phages can lyse bacteria in time lapse
Diagnostics
Advanced diagnostics are integrated services with the development of autogenous vaccines and phage therapy products. Diagnostics include microbiology consisting of isolation, identification and characterization of the pathogen, cryostorage and cryopreservation of the pathogen, molecular microbiology, genomic analysis and histology.