Sea Lice Research Centre - A Centre for Research-based Innovation on sea lice control

The SFI scheme promotes innovation by supporting long-term research through a close collaboration between R&D intensive companies and prominent research institutions. The Sea Lice Research Centre has been running as a Centre for Research based innovation (CRI) from September 2011 until August 2019, and aims to be the world leader in salmon louse research and other sea lice. The aim of the centre has been to facilitate development of new methods for lice control and shorten the time from basic research to new products and tools for parasite control in the aquaculture sector to achieve a true integrated pest management in the future. The University of Bergen has been host for the SLRC with The Institute of Marine Research and The Norwegian University of Life Sciences as academic partners and EWOS Innovation AS, PatoGen AS, Lerøy Seafood Group ASA, Mowi ASA and Elanco Animal Health as industrial partners. An important part of the SLRC work has been to develop and establish state of the art experimental facilities for sea lice, such as LiceLab and LiceBase. LiceLab contains unique biological material that includes various strains of L. salmonis that are fully sensitive to current medicine and several lice strains resistant to one or several of the chemical compounds used for sea lice control. The development of single fish tanks has increased the accuracy and opportunities for sea lice studies and has been validated in efficacy assays for testing of new medicines and vaccines. The unique properties of single fish tanks allows for specific crosses of sea lice, which is very difficult for most parasites. This has been used to generate family material to investigate genetic variation that reflects adaptation to environmental parameters such as tolerance of temperature and salinity. LiceBase is an integrated database where genomic, molecular and experimental data put together with analysis tools are stored. Establishment of LiceBase has facilitated the use of the genomic resources generated in various projects, including detailed annotation of the salmon louse genome. Since both the host and parasite genome are sequenced, the basis for understanding salmon louse biology in detail is possible and may be translated into control tools. Research performed in SLRC has significantly elevated our knowledge about basic biology of the salmon louse. Detailed understanding of salmon louse biology, from infection to reproduction including dispersal, is key in developing sustainable lice control for the industry. Between 25 and 35 persons have been working with research and innovation in SLRC, a summary of their achievements are: - In-depth knowledge of previously unknown molecular sea lice biology of host recognition, growth, reproduction and both exocrine and endocrine systems - Novel protocols for screening new therapeutic candidates and a wide range of tested compounds - Revision of the salmon louse life cycle - Contribution to a new detailed model for salmon louse development, in collaboration with the Institute of Marine Research - Vaccine targets and testing of more than 22 vaccine candidates in clinical trials - Novel applicable gene techniques to investigate vaccine targets and other genetic tools to improve sea lice resistance in Atlantic salmon - Publications and patents - New diagnostic tools; commercialised products within resistance - New functional feed ingredients 12 PhDs and several Master degrees - Important advices to the Norwegian Food Safety Authority and othe governmental bodies (e.g. heading the expert group developing the Traffic light system) Seven patents have been filed during the time SLRC have been an SFI; three of these are already developed by one of the industrial partners into an analytical tool for testing the resistance level against hydrogen peroxide, azametiphos and pyrethroids. 86 peer-reviewed articles as a direct scientific output from the centre, and the total number is expected to be over 100. The articles are published in a range of journals, including both general and more specialized. High quality research and experiments, published in international journals will continue to be an important deliverable in the future and significantly contribute to move the state of the art in sea lice research. The SLRC has fulfilled the planned goals and has a unique knowledge base for further research.

Grunnleggende forskning på lakselus og lakselusens biologi har vært en rød tråd for all aktivitet i SLRC gjennom perioden som SFI. Ny kunnskap om en parasitt som hvert år utsetter både næring om miljø for store belastninger er viktig for SLRC og alle som driver med forskning, lakseoppdrett, produktutvikling eller forvaltning. Kunnskapen har generert både nye og bedre metoder og nye produkter i arbeidet med å få kontroll over utfordringene med lakselus. Ekspertisen som er etablert hos forskere i SLRC er verdifull kompetanse for offentlig forvaltning og beslutningstakere, forskere har gjennom bidrag til offentlige rapporter og presentasjoner gitt informasjon om utfordringene rundt lakselus. Høsten 2017 innførte regjeringen «trafikklyssystemet» der lakselus er den eneste indikatoren. Her er effekten lakselus har på villfisk avgjørende for vekst og status i de ulike produksjonsområdene settes basert på faglig råd. Det faglige grunnlaget er gitt av en ekspertgruppe ledet av SLRC-direktøren.

Sea lice (Lepeophtheirus, Caligus) are the major pathogens affecting global salmon farming industry and have a significant impact in many areas. The annual loss has been estimated to 300 million Euros and the aquaculture industry relays heavily on a few c hemotherapeutants for control. Emerging resistance development to these drugs increase the necessity to develop new treatment methods (biological, prophylactic and drugs) and tools to avoid increased loss due to lice and to ensure a sustainable salmon far ming industry in the future. The research will focus on methods and tools to facilitate development of new drugs, develop new tools for resistance monitoring, reduce attachment in infective stages, improve host response, identification and evaluation of n ew targets for a future sea lice vaccine and to explore the possibilities to utilize RNAi as a novel method in lice control. By using the salmon louse genome sequence as a starting point, functional genomics methods will be utilized to identify molecular markers for drug resistance to facilitate monitoring and prolong the life time for valuable anti sea lice drugs. The SLRC consisting of the leading scientist within the field together with the major industrial players will represent a strong consortium to develop short and long term solutions for one of the most significant problems for the salmon farming industry world wide. This will be achieved through state of the art research in relevant fields (parasitology, molecular biology and genomics, pharmacol ogy, host parasite interactions) and establishment of an integrated database resource for the lice genome (WP 5, LiceBase) and state of the art wet-lab facilities for sea lice research (WP 6, LiceLab.) Results from the SLRC will enable an integrated contr ol system to be established, based on key features in sea lice biology, so lice in salmon farming can be controlled by a set of tools and not relay equally heavy on medicine, which is the current situation.