Development of a hormone implant to facilitate maturation and spawning in fish

Hatchery production is one of the largest costs and restraints to fin fish aquaculture andspawning aids are ranked as a high priority drug required by the aquaculture industry.Exogenous hormone administration has been developed to induce maturation and obtainfertilized eggs.While the GnRH hormone and slow-release vehicle are not new theircombination into a commercialized product that can work be used for a range of fish sizes andan innovative application gun to control accurate dosing are novel.This project will build on Phase I research which demonstrated slow release implants can yield2-3x higher juvenile fish production in hatcheries compared to current products on the market.This project aims to commercialize this implant through the accomplishment of three tasks: (1)optimize the hormone active ingredient analogue to be used in the final implant formulation(2) conduct studies required for FDA registration including drug efficacy and animal toxicityand (3) develop a new implant applicator gun that can allow for accurate custom implantdosing.Objectives 1 and 2 require trials on fish.Pinfish will be used as the benchmarkspecies with Florida Pompano and Bellgus Angelfish also utilized to demonstrate implantexpansion to other fish species.Objective 3 will be a collaboration between the PD aIndustrial designer and a marketing firm with prototypes trialed at five different commercialaquaculture farms.The outcome of this project will be two products on the path tocommercialization: (1) a spawning implant and (2) an innovative applicator gun.