Training
Increasing capacity building for the Mediterranean aquaculture sector through training is one of the core activities of PerformFISH. The training carried out by RDI performers or industry in PerformFISH is improving the professional skills and competence of those working and training within the blue economy.
For more information about these training opportunities and to register, visit the PerformFISH website: http://performfish.eu/training/ or follow us in Twitter and LinkedIn.
Upcoming Training Courses
PerformFISH work package 4 is currently planning a two-day training course to transfer the results of their research to relevant stakeholders. Watch this space for more information, soon to follow!
Past Training Courses
Courses organised by PerformFISH
PerformFISH Online Training Programme on The Practical Application of Modern Genomics in Aquaculture Breeding Programmes
As a continued part of its capacity building activity, PerformFISH delivered a one-day remote training course on The Practical Application of Modern Genomics in Aquaculture Breeding Programmes. The course is based on a multidisciplinary integrated approach that translates the outcomes of the PerformFISH project into actionable opportunities for the fin-fish aquaculture industry.
PerformFISH Online Training Programme on Integrated Health & Welfare Management in Sea Bream and Sea Bass Aquaculture
As part of its capacity building activity, PerformFISH have designed a training programme on “Integrated Health and Welfare Management in Sea Bream and Sea Bass Aquaculture”. The first two modules of this training programme are being held on-line in March and April 2021. The courses are based on multidisciplinary integrated diagnostic approach and effective management of preventive, therapeutic and welfare measures focusing on the findings of the PerformFISH project.
Download the Flyer with all the Information on the Training Courses
Module 1: Specialised Case Study Discussions on How to Manage a Health Issue on a Sea Bass / Sea Bream Farm
Three short sessions (90 minutes) have been designed for seabass and seabream health and welfare experts. In these sessions the experts attending have been provided with a mock case based on real situations in sea bream and sea bass health and disease management designed by the organising team. The mock cases are sent to the selected attendees two days in advance and they are requested to send in advance and present in the session their own proposed recommendations or proposed solutions for each case. During the 90 minutes sessions all proposals are shared and discussed.
Reports on the sessions held will be available soon.
Module 2: Practical Short Training Courses on Diagnostics of Sea Bass and Sea Bream Diseases
This module is divided into three short training courses that are being held online. The courses focus on different aspects of diagnostics in sea bass and sea bream diseases and health management such as basic diagnostic methodologies and protocols, specific parasitological diagnostic and specific diagnostic methodologies, and protocols in microbiology. Advances, methods, and standards derived from the different PerformFISH activities are also being presented in these sessions.
All applicable international, national and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed and the procedures here performed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institution (D. Lgs n. 26, 4 March 2014, Implementation of the Directive 2010/63/EU on protecting animals used for scientific purposes – Note of Ministry of Health 0017710-P-26/07/2017).
Click here to watch the training courses and download the training presentations
Courses organised in collaboration with other projects
The Advanced Training Course “Diagnostics and Prevention for Fish Parasite Control in Aquaculture” was held in Zaragoza, Spain, from 21 to 25 October 2019. The event was organised by the International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies (CIHEAM), through the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Zaragoza (IAMZ), and the ParaFishControl project, with the collaboration of PerformFISH, MedAID, and the University of Zaragoza.
The course was attended by twenty-five aquaculture experts from 13 countries, including research, policy and industry representatives. The primary objective of the course was to provide integrated information on fish parasites affecting marine and freshwater farmed fish in the Mediterranean region, focusing on the most recent findings on the main parasitic diseases, diagnostic methods, disease assessments and preventive and control measures.
The ParaFishControl, PerformFISH and MedAID projects provided attendants with the their latest techniques to diagnose and prevent parasitic diseases in Mediterranean aquaculture farms, and also shared their insights on newly tested alternative treatments and their efficacy. The practical design of the course will allow the attendants to implement what they have learnt on their day-to-day work.
The MedAID project has now developed two on-line modules based on this training course. The first one is provided by Dr Francesc Padrós from the University of Barcelona and Dr Carlos Zarza from Skretting ARC. This module focuses on parasitic diseases prevention, remediation and mitigation. The second module is provided by Dr Georgios Rigos from the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research and it focuses on the management of parasitic diseases. Both modules are available here: www.medaid-h2020.eu/index.php/fishparasites.
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Securing the nutritional requirements of cultured fish, the technical quality of the feed optimal for the production system as well as defining right feeding strategies are key challenges that both fish farmers and aquafeed producers should face to ensure a sustainable production.
The Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Zaragoza (CIHEAM Zaragoza) and the MedAID H2020 project jointly organised the Online Advanced Training: “New feeds and feeding technologies in aquaculture” in collaboration with the H2020 projects PerformFISH and NewTechAqua. This course gave an overview of both the existing and upcoming feed ingredients, what factors should affect the choices of feed and how feeding strategies and technologies are improving. The course emphasized particular aspects of Mediterranean species and production conditions. Participants were trained in order to:
- Better understand the importance of the use of new ingredients and new formulations.
- Acknowledge the main challenges in feed production.
- Better use feeds, feeders and fish feeding monitoring.
- Recognize the impact of customers’ preferences and the legal framework in feed production.
- Design feeding trials to better adapt feeds and feeding to the farm conditions and production systems.
The course was held online, with lectures and practical work delivered in live sessions by highly qualified lecturers from research centres, universities and private companies in different countries. The 8 sessions were held from 14 to 18 and 21 to 23 June, 2021.
More information
PerformFISH Young Researchers
Lisen Li is one of the young researchers working on the PerformFISH project. 
Lisen Li has an MSc in Aquaculture from Shanghai Ocean University (SHOU), Shanghai, China and is registered for a PhD at the Universidade do Algarve, Faro, Portugal working with P10, CCMAR. Lisen’s PhD is directed at understanding how Gilthead sea bream and European sea bass egg quality affects larval and juvenile quality. The outcomes of his work will be translated to industry, providing additional management tools for egg quality monitoring. Lisen started his project in March 2018.
Lisen’s work has now come to fruition and he recently published it in the journal Developmental and Comparative Immunology (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dci.2020.103772). In this article Lisen looked at the evolution of the lysozyme family in vertebrates and then focussed on the forms present in sea bream and sea bass. This enzyme is present in many tissues at the surface of the body and has an important role in immune defence because it breaks down the bacterial cell wall and so provides protection against bacterial invasion. Lisen found that fish have both G- and C-lysozyme forms but also identified for the first time in fish a more recently identified family member lactalbumin, which was extremely high in sea bream eggs. As part of his work Lisen developed an evolutionary model to explain lysozyme gene family evolution from the invertebrates (like bivalves) through to the vertebrates. But why is this work relevant for aquaculture? Fish eggs contain lysozyme presumably to protect them from bacteria and Lisen found that the activity varied during development and when he looked at gene transcripts for the different forms of lysozyme in sea bream eggs and larvae he found their expression was significantly different between eggs and early larvae from different sea bream broodstock suggesting that the mother provides immune protection in sea bream, which is similar to what happens in humans.
Babak Najafpour is carrying out his PhD at CCMAR, University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal, in the context of the PerformFISH project.
Babak says, “My Ph.D. thesis targets sea bass and sea bream larvae and juveniles. I am working to understand the biological factors that influence the production quality in hatcheries. One important factor is the immune capacity including the role of the microbiome. At the Aquaculture Europe 2019 conference in Berlin, Germany, I reported my results about complement system evolution. They showed a big expansion in the number of genes for complement 3 (C3) in the fish and particularly in the sea bream that has 9 different forms. This is important for other studies I have been carrying out in my PhD thesis and is improving understanding of the complement system, which is important as one of the first lines of defence against pathogens. I am now trying to understand the interaction of the larvae with their environment, how this has shaped their microbiome, and how this affects the immune system. One of my important goals is to find gene and microbiome markers that we can relate to quality. I hope that the results of my PhD projects will help hatcheries manage their production and researchers that work on the evolution of the sea bass and sea bream and immune system.”
Profile coming soon