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Salmon with chips on the menu at Landcatch

State-of-the art genetic techniques are putting a Scottish salmon breeder ahead of competitors around the world in the race to identify healthier, disease-resistant salmon for breeding.
 
As the result of a project backed by the Technology Strategy Board, Stirling-basedLandcatch Natural Selection has developed a genomic ‘chip' for salmon.
 
The ‘chip' is a glass or plastic slide used to analyse variations in DNA sequences (known as Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms or SNPs for short).  These act as markers to help scientists locate genes associated with disease resistance or other desirable traits and select the best fish to breed.  
 
A single SNP chip can contain the DNA of an entire fish, enabling scientists to map 20,000 to 30,000 genes, a significant advance from the 25 to 30 genes that can be identified using standard genetics. 
 

A major breakthrough 

"This is a major breakthrough in genetic services for salmon. It certainly puts clear water between us and our competitors and we're already seeing a lot of interest." Neil Manchester, managing director of Landcatch, said:
 
"Landcatch is already putting its findings to work in the fight against sea lice, a parasite that costs the £350m UK salmon farming industry £34m each year. 
 
"Even before the new chip was complete, we recognised a relatively weak genetic marker that allowed us to identify families of salmon that were very susceptible to sea lice. We were able to remove them from the breeding pool last year for the first time. 
 
"When the chip is in full use in 2015 we'll be able to create an even more resistant strain of fish to offer customers - ahead of anybody else," Neil added.
Channel website: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/innovate-uk

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