Neda Gilannejad – NORCE

Welcome to the “Blue Biome Boffins” Campaign where we interview different participants in the BlueRemediomics project, from Early Career Scientists to Senior Researchers, to learn more about their role and valuable work in making this project a success.

Neda Gilannejad is a senior researcher in fish nutritional physiology at the Norwegian Research Centre (NORCE, Norway). Her research focuses specifically on understanding the digestive function in fish through molecular biology, enzyme biochemistry, and in vitro models, and she has increasingly focused on sustainable feeds in the recent years. For the BlueRemediomics project, she is involved in Work Package 4 related to aquaculture and environmental services. In this interview, we talked about some common misconceptions of the aquaculture industry and her team’s recent discovery of a microbial consortium that can inhibit the growth of pathogens to improve fish resistance to diseases.

How did you become interested in the field of aquaculture and fish nutritional physiology?

Neda Gilannejad:  I was really fascinated by biology and by aquatic animals from the very beginning. For me, aquaculture was a way of getting closer to fish biology and that merged with the research of producing food for people, is the best combination I can think of.

What are your primary research interests within aquaculture?

Neda Gilannejad: I’ve been working a lot in fish nutritional physiology, focusing mainly on how feed is processed within the fish gut, and which conditions within the gut enable the feed to be digested better, and how appetite is affected. I’m also looking into other external parameters determining the digestive function like water conditions, the feed composition or temperature, that are more relevant to aquaculture rather than basic biology.

Can you briefly describe your role in the BlueRemediomics project as if you were talking to a non-scientist? 

Neda Gilannejad: The BlueRemediomics project has a discovery platform that allows us to use a huge molecular database, as well as functional analysis and screening processes. Our role is within WP4 related to Aquaculture and Environmental Services. We will use the knowledge generated in the previous work packages (WP1 to WP3) together with the knowledge produced in our own work package to make aquaculture more sustainable in different ways. That includes reducing the mortality of the fish at different stages, improving the sustainability of novel feed ingredients, and tackling some of the challenges that the salmon industry, especially, is facing. We are producing microbiome-based products that can improve the digestibility of feeds, as well as fish health and disease resistance.

What is the most exciting aspect of your research in the BlueRemediomics Project?  

Neda Gilannejad: For me, being part of a consortium where people have extremely diverse expertise and therefore learning more about the different facets and aspects of ocean microbiome research has been really fascinating. It also allows you to think about future projects you could work on together, to build upon our work in BlueRemediomics to tackle other related issues. So, I think the people themselves have been really the most brilliant part of this project.

Have you discovered any important milestones or breakthroughs as part of your research in BlueRemediomics?

Neda Gilannejad: In most of our tasks we are still collecting samples, but I’m happy to say that we have indeed found interesting results already together with LEITAT. We’ve been monitoring the microbiome in different aquaculture settings, production systems and strategies in our partner’s facilities Lerøy, as well as in the wild and, we’ve been able to build a microbial consortium that can – at least at in vitro level – inhibit the growth of pathogens. The next step for us will be to upscale this microbial community and use it as a probiotic to improve the actual resistance of fish to diseases. I’m really excited about that part to have reached this point where we can actually test it on fish!

To provide a bit of background – one of the major reasons for economic loss and sustainability problems in the salmon industry is related to fish health and welfare issues, such as low resistance to diseases like sea lice, or bacterial infections. It has been really interesting to green solutions, microbiome-based products, from our fish monitoring activities, which were basically taken from the “nature” itself with the goal to use it in fish feed to improve fish performance – like a probiotic, but “tailor-made” for salmon.

Where do you see your research after the project has ended – which parts of it would you like to take forward in the coming years?

Neda Gilannejad: We have already some ideas and have been discussing them with other project partners, especially around green solutions for challenges facing aquaculture. For instance, this could be facilitated by extracting microbes or peptides discovered in the first three work packages of BlueRemediomics, which could be developed to reduce fish mortality, improve fillet quality, and enhance the digestibility of novel feeds in aquaculture.

Can you tell us one interesting fact about aquaculture most people wouldn’t know?

Neda Gilannejad: I think there is a misconception of aquaculture in that aquaculture products are “less healthy” than those from capture fisheries, but I can safely say that this is not true! For other animal products, we have long ago accepted that we need to rely on farmed animals and can no longer go and “hunt them” on a daily basis. I think for aquaculture it should be the same. Most of the aquaculture practices, at least in Europe, undergo rigorous control and regulations, where sanitary, hygienic, and nutritional properties are taken into account, so people can eat the fish, for example, without being worried about health issues. Of course, it would be wrong to say that aquaculture doesn’t have any environmental or sustainability impacts – it does, we cannot deny it. However, compared to other farmed species (terrestrial animals) aquaculture is one of the most efficient ones in use of water, land, and the amount of feed needed to produce the fish. I think we need to get used to the idea that we will need to more and more rely on our oceans to feed the growing population. And this increasing trend has been visible; while in the past 30 years, capture fisheries have been constant – aquaculture has shown a steady increase, now forming a bigger part of the total seafood production.

Do you have any advice for people interested in getting into aquaculture research?

Neda Gilannejad: For anyone interested in aquaculture, I think it’s important to always consider fish health and welfare and keep their well-being in mind – after all these animals are not only there to “grow” and be our food, but they need to be treated as living beings.

I also have some advice especially for female researchers. I would advise them to have more confidence in themselves and to share their opinions, even if it’s not always easy. For me, this has definitely been a challenge sometimes, so I would like to tell my future colleagues this: don’t be afraid, stand up for yourself, reach out, create your network and you will always learn something!