Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year. (2017-2018 to 2022-2023)

Fish is a major food source around the globe. There is a rapidly growing demand for aquaculture to meet the demand for fish used for consumption. This necessitates technologies aimed to facilitate growth, reproductive success and weight gain of cultured fishes. Sustainable aquaculture can only be improved through evidence based scientific approaches, including the type of research outlined in this application. Knowledge generated by basic research on hormones is critical in refining aquaculture practices. For example, currently there are hormone-based drugs that stimulate reproductive success, hormone-overexpressing strains of fast growing fish, and aquaculture practices that utilize diets to modulate beneficial hormones in fish. The vision, and long-term goal of my research program is to better understand how hormones regulate food intake, metabolism, growth and reproduction in fish. The eventual outcomes of this research are generation of new knowledge and betterment of aquaculture practices. In line with this overarching goal, my NSERC Discovery Grant funded research over the past decade has made seminal contributions in characterizing a large number of hormones and their roles in the regulation of feeding, growth, metabolism and reproduction. I hypothesize that feeding, metabolism, growth and reproduction are interlinked by novel hormones (eg: irisin, pheonixin) in fish. The short-term objectives of the research proposed here are to (i) characterize the role of novel hormones on metabolism, growth and reproduction, (ii) study the mechanisms these hormones use to elicit their functions, and (iii) to develop strategies to effectively utilize hormones we identified to induce growth and spawning in fish. Using zebrafish, goldfish and rainbow trout, widely used models for the type of research outlined here, I will employ a number of cutting-edge research techniques to study hormonal regulation of fish metabolism, growth and reproduction. I anticipate these novel hormones to have significant biological effects in fish. In addition, this research will validate combinations of hormones and diets as potential strategies in aquaculture for improving fish yield. The results of the research outlined here will provide (i) significant knowledge on the hormonal regulation of food intake, metabolism, growth and reproduction in fish , and (ii) i s strongly expected to benefit fisheries and aquaculture in developing strategies to augment growth and reproduction of fish. This interdisciplinary research provides outstanding training opportunities for a large number of highly qualified personnel, who will join careers that require highly specific skill sets . This research will contribute to sustain Canada as a leader in aquaculture, and our country as a reservoir of talent pool for the future workforce.