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Posted May, 1998

UMaine Aquaculture Research Gets Boost from $1 Million Grant

A $1.17 million federal grant awarded in 1997 to expand the University of Maine's aquaculture program is bringing new faculty to the state and upgrading critical facilities. The funds were provided by the EPSCoR program with additional support from the State of Maine through the Maine Science and Technology Foundation.

According to Bruce Barber, associate professor in the School of Marine Sciences, six new faculty have been hired. One of them, Ione Hunt Von Herbing, arrived at UMaine in 1997, and the other five are expected to assume their posts this fall. They are:

• Eric Anderson, a pathogenic microbiologist from the Northwest Fisheries Research Center and Department of Pathobiology at the University of Washington in Seattle, in the Dept. of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Molecular Biology.

• Carol Kim, a specialist in fish diseases and vaccines from Oregon State University, in the Dept. of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Molecular Biology.

• Mark Wells, a chemical oceanographer from the University of California, Santa Cruz, with expertise in trace metals, colloid chemistry and harmful algae blooms, in the School of Marine Sciences.

• Paul Rawson, Quantitative Genetics of Marine Organisms, Scripps Institutiton of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, in the School of Marine Sciences.

• Sara Lindsay, Ecology and Sensory Physiology of Marine Invertebrates, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, in the School of Marine Sciences.

“Each of these new faculty members brings expertise which is important to Maine's marine and aquaculture industries,” says Barber.

In addition, EPSCoR and State funds have been used to improve a fish isolation unit for disease detection and treatment research in Hitchner Hall on the UMaine campus. That facility has three recirculating water systems and tanks to conduct studies on fish diseases such as infectious salmon anemia.

Plans are also being made to add space at the flowing seawater laboratory at the Darling Marine Center in Walpole. That facility will be used to raise and maintain broodstock for studies with new species.

“Right now, our researchers get their supplies of eggs or larval fish from labs elsewhere,” says Barber. “This addition will give us the ability to maintain our own stocks of flounder, haddock or other species. It could also serve as an incubator for industry. It gives us space to try out new ideas to see if they have real potential.”

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