Is There a Place for GM in Aquaculture?

With no problems with sea lice, no risk of escape, minimal to no use of antibiotics and the same great taste and nutritional profile as other farmed Atlantic salmon, is the AquAdvantage® Salmon the perfect salmon? The Fish Site Editor Lucy Towers talks to Dr Ron Stotish, CEO of AquaBounty Technologies about its sustainable production. In a world where demand for food is growing, the Genetically Modified (GM) AquAdvantage Salmon (AAS) could be a sustainable option for meeting future dietary needs. The fish starts its journey in land-based egg production facilities in Canada and is then, currently, transported to the hills of Panama where the eggs are hatched and the fish is farmed in a land-based flow through system. AAS takes just 16-20 months to grow to market size (4-5kgs) compared to the 30-36 months it takes conventional farmed Atlantic salmon. AAS is able to grow faster thanks to a growth hormone gene from Chinook salmon, with the breakthrough innovation occurring when researchers at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada inserted the growth hormone into fertilised Atlantic salmon eggs nearly 25 years ago. This growth hormone gene, which is coupled to a promoter sequence of DNA from ocean pout, enables AAS to produce its own growth hormone year-round instead of only in the spring and summer months.