World Aquaculture March 2019

18 MARCH 2019 • WORLD AQUACULTURE • WWW.WA S.ORG 2018 Best Article in World Aquaculture Magazine E very year, the WAS Board of Directors sponsors a monetary award ($100) to the authors of the best article published in World Aquaculture magazine as a way to encourage high-quality submissions. The WAS Honors and Awards Committee has selected the article by Jeffrey B. Kaiser, Cynthia K. Faulk, Kathryn L. Thompson and Lee A. Fuiman on “Baitfish Aquaculture: Spawning and Juvenile Requirements of Pigfish.” The article appeared in the September 2017 issue of World Aquaculture . Congratulations to Jeffrey and his co-authors! T his issue’s selected publication, from volume 50(1):18-33 of the Journal of the World Aquaculture Society, is titled “Testing of a pond-side molecular diagnostic tool for the detection of white spot syndrome virus in shrimp aquaculture” by D. Minardi, K.S. Bateman, A. Kuzdzal, M. Stone, J. Avant, R. Condliffe, P. Brotherton, M. Laverick, K. Sritunyalucksana, O. Itsathitphaisarn, P. Baoprasertkul and G. D. Stentiford. White spot disease, caused by white spot syndrome virus (WSSV), has caused serious economic losses of shrimp, estimated at between $8 and $15 billion since it first appeared in the 1990s. Early diagnosis is critical to initiate efficient management of outbreaks, avoid spread of the disease and to minimize losses. While diagnostic tests have been developed for WSSV, these require specialized laboratory equipment and personnel and are relatively expensive. Moreover, a farm experiencing a disease outbreak often must transport samples from a remotely located farm to a centralized laboratory and then wait for several days or perhaps weeks for results. Strip-based methods of diagnosis are under development but the sensitivity is often too low for diagnosis of diseases such as WSSV. Minardi et al. (2019) describe the development and application of a new point-of-need diagnostic test that is easy to Recent Research Highlight from the Journal of the World Aquaculture Society use on farms by non- experts. It is affordable and provides results within 70 minutes. The Genedrive® (GD) diagnostic platform and WSSV test developed are based on PCR amplification of a target sequence and the subsequent dissociation melt curve analysis via a portable GD PCR machine. Following testing of the analytical sensitivity of the WSSV assay and sensitivity testing on WSSV- infected shrimp tissue, a testing kit and a sample preparation protocol were developed. Following a laboratory infection trial, the GD platform and WSSV test were evaluated with on-farm tests at 13 sites in three provinces in Thailand. Results from the GD field tests were compared directly with those of gold-standard World Organization for Animal Health quantitative polymerase chain reaction methods in the laboratory. Results showed that the GD platform is a useful addition to existing field diagnostic methods available. It is easy to use by non-experts, is nontoxic, single use, and displays easy-to- understand results (“positive” or “negative”) for the user. The GD test was viewed as useful by shrimp farmers in terms of providing information to better manage pond harvests through early diagnosis of disease outbreaks. —Carole Engle, Executive Editor, JWAS