iBB

A position is open at iBB to hire a doctorate researcher under the scope of the FCT-funded MicroControl project. The selected candidate (PhD holder) will work on the development of multi-species bacterial inoculants to prevent diseases and promote well-being of fish larvae in aquaculture settings. The Research Scientist will apply next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies to study the onset of the fish microbiome during successive stages of larval rearing, and to determine whether microbiome manipulation approaches are effective in suppressing the proliferation of pathogenic bacteria in fish larviculture. Most of the work will be performed at BSRG-iBB under the supervision of Prof. Rodrigo Costa, with two secondments of approximately 1 month planned for experimental work at EPPO-IPMA (Olhão, Algarve) under the supervision of Dr. Laura Ribeiro.  More information on the position and how to apply can be found here under the acronym MicroControl. The application deadline is February 6th 2019. You can read more about the MicroControl project here: https://www.scoop.it/t/ibb?q=Microcontrol 

The project "MicroControl: Exploiting the healing capacity of nature´s microbiomes for improved fish larviculture" has been recommended for funding by FCT (2017 Call for SR&TD Project Grants). The goal of MicroControl is to develop multi-species cocktails of beneficial fish symbionts to prevent bacterial disease incidence during fish larval rearing, a stage at which fish individuals are highly susceptible to acute outbreaks that pronouncedly impact land-based rearing of hundreds of economically important species. The team will conduct larval rearing trials under “microbiome therapy” to address the effectiveness of the approach in gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata), the third most cultivated fish species worldwide. The project, which falls within the scientific area of Biological Sciences, is headed by Rodrigo Costa from BSRG-iBB and involves a collaboration with Instituto Português do Mar e da Atmosfera.

Photo details: Gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata) larva, from Sara I.C. Castanho, “The potential of Asparagopsis armata to control the bacterial load associated to live feed to improve Seabream (Sparus aurata) larvae performance”, MSc Thesis., Algarve University, Portugal, June 2014.