The Spanish Society for Microbiota, Probiotics and Prebiotics (SEMiPyP) has awarded DARWIN the prize for ‘best oral communication on clinical trials’ at the workshop that took place in Granada on 12-14th February 2020. The oral communication was presented by our colleague Adriel Latorre, head of the genomics department. The SEMiPyP is a scientific organization that focuses on sharing scientific knowledge, research, clinical applications and scientific communications about microbiota from the human body, probiotics and prebiotics and their impact on human health.

The work presented by Adriel Latorre, Probiotics for aquiculture: from characterization to action, consisted of the phenotypic and molecular characterization of the pathogenic agent causing high rates of mortality in fish farms, and a semi-rational screening of potential probiotics with biological activities against the pathogen.

Infections caused by biological agents are one the main causes of mortality in fish farms, resulting in great economic losses. Therefore, the objectives of this study were:

– Characterize the pathogen(s) causing infections at a fish farm.
– Identification of the main reservoirs within the facilities of the fish farm.
– Development of new probiotics with antimicrobial activities against the pathogen(s).

This work was performed using high throughput sequencing techniques for the identification and characterization of the pathogen(s), as well as in vitro culture-dependent techniques to test the inhibitory effects of probiotic strains against the pathogens. The candidate strains are currently being tested in a real environment to validate their effect in vivo. The first results have already suggested that the fish treated with probiotics display a higher resistance to the infection.