This project is split between five work packages which aim to cover all aspects of evaluating prophylactic health products and novel alternatives in small-scale aquaculture farming. These include value chain analysis, product efficiency and microbial safety, as well as ensuring that the project has a lasting impact on stakeholders.
The University of Stirling is responsible for the management of the project including operational, technical and financial aspects. Alongside partner countries it will also manage country relations and ethical monitoring, monitoring gender, social and ethical issues encountered during the project implementation as well as those raised by research.
Marine organisms have the potential for transforming into Prophylactic Health Products in aquaculture practice. In addition, several Indian medicinal plants are already effectively administered as PHPs in shrimp/fish aquaculture. Typical bioactives are generally either extracts or compounds of bacterial, fungal, microalgae, macroalgae or animal origin. They are mainly polysaccharides, peptides and peptidoglycan, alkaloids, saponins, phenolics, terpenoids etc.
‘Hits’ from microarray analyses and prospective immune-active methanol extracts will be evaluated for their efficacy and mode of action in vivo in a zebrafish model
Standardisation and scale-up of pertinent glycan and natural product extractions will be established, along with recommended species/cultivars and formulations. SOPs will be worked-up for roll-out to farmers, feed manufacturers and suppliers, and/or directly to fish farmers or, depending on the outcomes above and the technical complexity or otherwise of the process.
The project will use a modified theory of change approach to supporting pathways to impact and a participatory market chain approach (PMCA) to disseminating technologies and improving market access for the resource-poor. The PMC approach aims to foster market access by generating collaboration among the different market chain actors and to facilitate change in market chains that lack coordination. The approach aims to create an environment that builds trust among the different market chain actors through supporting mutual learning and shared innovation.
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