Development of vaccine concepts that protect farmed fish throughout the entire production cycle

Effective vaccines and vaccination strategies are a prerequisite for intensive industrial aquaculture. Although many protective vaccines have been developed for the fish farming industry there are still several serious infectious diseases where no prophyl actic measures have proven to be effective. Especially, it has been difficult to make protective vaccines against intracellular pathogens, and we still lack effective methods for administration of vaccines at early stages of the life cycle (larvae/juvenil es). The protection of a vaccine depends on several aspects: - the antigen(s) - formulation (encapsulation, adjuvants) - administration (injection, immersion, bath, oral) - time of vaccination (age/size of fish, season) The ideal vaccine is easy to admi nister, can be given early in the life cycle, give high and long lasting protection with minimal side effects and at low cost. In most cases it is difficult to optimize all these parameters at the same time, and we therefore have to make compromises. The aim of the project is to bring together top-level and highly complementary research groups (as vaccinologists, microbiologists, immunologists) from India and Norway to work with the above mentioned aspects of vaccines in order to develop vaccines and vac cine strategies against infectious diseases where such prophylactic methods do not yet exist. Especially concepts for mass vaccination of small fish (immersion, oral) will be emphasized in order to achieve protection at an early stage of the life cycle.