InNoVacc. Indo-Norway platform for developing candidate vaccines to invertebrate, piscine and avian species.

Vaccination is essential to large-scale control of infectious diseases affecting commercial aquatic and avian farming. Nevertheless, modern aquaculture lacks effective vaccines against several pathogens due to lack of understanding of their immune system and development of effective immunostimulants. Moreover constant antigenic drift and re-assortment, as in the case of influenza viruses, make vaccine development challenging. The major goal of the InNoVacc project is to combine the complementary strengths and create an Indo-Norway platform for developing candidate vaccines to invertebrate, piscine and avian species based on the understanding of basic mechanisms and comparative aspects. The model agents are the viruses causing white spot syndrome, infectio us salmon anemia, avian influenza, viral nervous necrosis, pancreas disease and infectious pancreatic necrosis, all diseases causing major economic loss in this business. To enable commercial exploitation, vaccine antigens will be made as genetically modi fied recombinant proteins and DNA and/or replicating vectors. Emerging concepts in effective adjuvant and formulations will be incorporated to develop efficacious vaccination procedures. The design and the evaluation of success of vaccination procedures w ill be based on molecular studies on host-pathogen interactions. Ultimately the goal is to combine the complementary strengths of several investigators with proven track records in the field and focus all efforts to develop futuristic vaccination strategi es to save huge commercial losses suffered by this important industry.