:: Profile

National Centre for Aquatic Animal Health, formerly, Centre for Fish Disease Diagnosis and Management has been working in the realm of Aquatic Animal Health Management since its inception on 2000 January with the mandate for Research, Teaching and Extension. Vision of the Centre is holistic development of viable technologies for the management of aquatic animal health especially the species cultured. The scientific strategy is to harness the potential of the Centre besides collaborating with sister organizations to achieve the long term and short term objectives in such a way that the Centre shall have the capability to tackle the problems related to aquatic animal health and to give leadership in it at National level. A unique feature of the Centre is its’ in-house large scale production facility, the Aquaculture Health Products division set up to meet needs of the Indian Aquaculture Industry. The Centre is well equipped to conduct field trials of the research outputs, and to ensure a consistent and continuous supply of the products. The Aquaculture Extension Cell (AEC) is the link of the farmer to technology. Besides, we provide a platform for the interaction of farmers, scientists and industry altogether.

Long-term objectives:
1.	Novel Aquaculture Medicines
2.	Total solutions to problems related to aquaculture environment quality
3.	Aquatic animal cell culture
4.	Molecular characterization of pathogens and development of diagnostics in microbiology
5.	Extension of aquatic animal health management practices

Major Achievements
Major achievements of the Centre at the technology for aquaculture systems are
1.	Nitrifying bioreactors to be integrated in to prawn/shrimp hatcheries and the Organic Recirculation Prawn Seed Production System
2.	Antagonistic probiotics
3.	Bioaugmentors for detritus management
4.	A cyanobacterial system for the management of vibrios
5.	Novel anti-Vibrio drugs
6.	Acremonium insoluble beta glucan as potential immunostimulant
7.	Chitosan based drug delivery system
8.	Indirect fluorescent antibody technique for the detection of Vibrio alginolyticus

At the level of extension, the Centre could introduce Zero Water Exchange Shrimp culture with bioremediation, develop aquaculture health products indigenously and distribute to farms, revive the once wound up insurance in shrimp culture to those farmers who implement Zero Water Exchange adopting the CFDDM package.

The Centre undertakes continuing education programme in aquaculture health management to the farming community.

The Centre functions under the Coordinatorship of Dr. I.S. Bright Singh, Reader, School of Environmental Studies.

Advisory Boards
The Centre has two Advisory Boards - Management and Technical.
Patron	Vice Chancellor, CUSAT
Chairman	Dr. A. Mohandas, Emeritus Professor, CUSAT
Convener	Dr. I.S. Bright Singh, Coordinator - NCAAH
Members (Management)	1. Prof. I.S. Bright Singh, Director, School of Environmental Studies, CUSAT
	2. Dr. P. Natarajan, Director, International Centre for Bioresources, Tamil Nadu.
	3. Dr. N.R. Menon, Honorary Director, C-IMCOZ, CUSAT.
	4. Prof. M. Sahul Hameed (Retd), CUSAT
Members (Technical)	1. Dr. K. Dhevendaran, Head, Dept. of Aquatic Biology & Fisheries, University of Kerala.
	2. Dr. K.T. Damodaran, Director, School of Marine Sciences, CUSAT.
	3. Prof. I.S. Bright Singh, Director, School of Environmental Studies, CUSAT.
	4. Dr. D. Chandramohan, Scientist (Retd), National Institute of Oceanography, Goa.
	5. Prof. I. Karunasagar, Head, Department of Microbiology, College of Fisheries, Mangalore.
	6. Dr. K. Gopakumar, DDG –ICAR (Retd).
	7. Dr. N.R. Menon, Honorary Director, C-IMCOZ, CUSAT.
	8. Dr. R. Korakandy, Director, School of Industrial Fisheries, CUSAT.
	9. Dr. K.C. George, Principal Scientist, CMFRI, Cochin.
	10. Dr. Rosamma Philip, Senior Lecturer, School of Marine Sciences, CUSAT.
	11. Shri. K.S. Nair, Deputy Director, MPEDA, Cochin.

For more information contact: Prof. I.S. Bright Singh PhD Coordinator, National Centre for Aquatic Animal Health and Director, School of Environmental Studies, Dean, Faculty of Environmental Studies, Cochin University of Science and Technology, Fine Arts Avenue, Kochi, 682 016, Kerala, India. Tel/Fax: 91-484-2381120 Email: bsingh@md3.vsnl.net.in

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