Year Awarded 2021
Total award amount $1,305,838
Location Starksville, MS
Program Seeding Solutions
Matching Funders Mississippi State University and University of California, Davis
Grantee Institution Mississippi State University
Catfish are an economically important agricultural commodity for several southern U.S. states, with total sales of $360 million in 2018. However, the emerging pathogen, E. piscicida bacterium, is causing infections in catfish and other farm-raised fish, leading to increases in antibiotic use and severe economic losses in aquaculture. There are no commercial vaccines available to prevent E. piscicida. This research aims to develop a vaccine to mitigate E. piscicida in farmed-fish, thereby reducing the number of infected fish and the need for antibiotics.