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The 2020-2021 aquaculture seminar series

The Roslin Institute's redesigned aquaculture seminar series is in full swing.

The annual series of aquaculture seminars led by the University's team at the Roslin Institute is going strong, thanks in part to quick and inclusive thinking by its organisers. Now convened and attended remotely, the seminar series is open to all and works to provide attendees with clear and incisive information on ongoing aquaculture research in the UK and beyond. The schedule for the seminar series as it currently stands reads as follows: 

October 16th, 2020, 11:00am GMT

  • "Genetic determinism of spontaneous masculinisation in XX-female rainbow trout" by Clemence Fraislin
  • "Impact of vaccination and selective breeding on the transmission of Infectious salmon anaemia virus” and Margo Chase-Topping

November 13th, 2020, 11:00am GMT 

  • "Developments in pacific oyster primary cell culture and novel applications" by Rob Potts 
  • "Improving disease resistance in farmed salmon: from reading the genome to re-writing it" by Remi Gratacap 

December 11th, 2020, 11:00am GMT

  • "Generation of a reference genome assembly for the European flat oyster (Ostrea edulis)" by Manu Gundappa
  • "Potential to enhance host resistance to Tilapia Lake Virus (TiLV) in a Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) GIFT population by selective breeding" by Agustin Barria

January 15th, 2021, 11:00am GMT

  • "A novel RNA virus linked to mortalities of the larval giant freshwater prawn (Macrobrachium rosenbergii) in Bangladesh” by Chantelle Hooper from CEFAS
  • "Single cell transcriptomic analysis of Atlantic salmon liver in response to bacterial challenge" by Richard Taylor and Rose Ruiz Daniels

February 11th, 2021, 9:00am GMT

  • "Genomic selection for WSSV resistance in whiteleg shrimp boosts survival under an experimental disease challenge test" by Nick Robinson from NOFIMA
  • "Investigating mechanisms underlying genetic resistance to Salmon Rickettsial Syndrome in Atlantic salmon using RNA sequencing" by Carolina Moraleda Chiang

April 16th, 2021, 11:00am GMT

  • "An introduction to St Abbs Marine Station" by Dr Kevin Scott, Marine Station Manager at St Abbs

July 16th, 2021, 11:00am GMT

  • Presenters to be announced closer to date.

If you are interested in attending future aquaculture seminars, please contact chudson@ed.ac.uk for more information. 

Since before 2020, Group Leader and Career Track Fellow Tim Bean has helped produce the seminars by coordinating with other researchers from the Roslin Institute. "Our overall aim is to share the science that we do here and to invite people to come and work with us," Tim explains. 

In previous years, the aquaculture seminars have been hosted from the Roslin Institute; in the interest of supporting safety measures across the University, the seminars are now held online—which has made them even more accessible, allowing them to reach a larger audience. "Initially we had planned to hold aquaculture seminars inside Roslin to promote discussion within our small aquaculture groups, perhaps with the aspiration to share the excitement of aquaculture science more broadly across Edinburgh," Tim says. "However, with us all out of the building and with everyone having missed the conference season, it seemed like the ideal opportunity to give our students and postdocs the chance to share their research more widely. As such we now share presentations publicly and have been amazed by the initial response."

Remi Gratacap, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow working on the Easter Bush campus, gave one of the presentations in the seminar's November lineup. "The ongoing aquaculture seminar series is a great opportunity to communicate our research findings to a broader audience, as it is open to the public," he recounts. "We need to make our science accessible; this requires establishing the big picture of why and how we focus our efforts on a particular subject. The feedback from the presentation and the Q&A session was great; I even gave a second abbreviated version of this talk to a couple of researchers from the West coast of the US who could not make for the live presentation (I think it was 2am Pacific time). This turned into a great impromptu meeting and hopefully some collaborations."

With audiences and presenters alike enthusiastic about the seminar series, Tim is keeping their momentum going for 2021. When asked why the seminars have been such a success, Tim explained he helps to keep the focus on the team as a whole, as opposed to centering it on only his fellow Group Leaders. "Crucially, as opposed to a lot of webinars, we are focusing on our PhD students and postdocs... and giving everyone the chance to see the most exciting part of science: the data."

We owe thanks to Tim and to all the seminar presenters as we watch the seminar series continue with flying colours in 2021!

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