With the global fish production through capture fisheries reaching its maximum due to over exploitation, a major source of food/dietary protein for the teeming millions of people in the new century will be aquaculture. Present aquaculture production has almost surpassed that of capture fisheries. At least 50% of the fish consumed by humans are farm- reared. China accounts for about two-thirds of the world’s total aquaculture production followed by India with far less production than China. India has the potential for producing culture fish, many more times of what it is actually producing. One of the main reasons for this failure is the large scale mortalities of fish due to aquatic environmental pollution, crowding other stressors leading to immunosuppression and the consequent microbial infectious diseases. While global annual loss to aquaculture industries due to diseases was estimated to be US$6.5 billion per annum (nearly 40% of the production). Though no clear estimates annual disease loss are available for Indian aquaculture , the % loss of production can be equal or more than that of global average. Fish diseases can be controlled by immunological and other ways such as by using antibiotics and immunoprophylactic measures like Vaccines and Immunostimulants. To develop efficacious immuno-prophylactic and immunotherapeutic measures for fish diseases, better understanding of fish immunity is an important prerequisite. The centre provides the necessary facilities for training and research in Fish Immunology which is a newly emerged discipline in life sciences.
At the national level, there are only very few institutions working in the area of Fish Immunology. This situation is due to lack of trained personnel, the field being new. In the School of Life Sciences, Vels University, Immunology and Fish Immunology have been identified as an area for intensive study and research respectively.
The group normally includes Fish Immunology doctoral scholars, M.Phil. students, Technical Assistant, field/lab Assistant, collaborating faculty fellows and the Dean of Life Sciences.
The thrust areas of research interest include developing environment-friendly prophylactic and therapeutic immunostimulants from terrestrial and marine plants for culture fish. Another area is heavymetal- induced immunosuppression in fish and this aspect has relevance to extensive cultures in large water bodies which are more often receive polluted waters form rivers and canals which are polluted by industrial effluents. Stress-induced immunomodulation due to physical and social sressors (e.g over crowding, all male culture etc.) is another priority area of research in this centre.
The centre under the leadership of Prof. Dinakaran Michael, has published large number of research articles in indexed national and international journals with good impact factors and three inventions have been filed for patents.The centre's director, Prof. Dr. Dinakaran Michael who has been involved in active research for the past nearly three decades has received national and international recognition for his achievements and has supervised large number of MPhil and PhD theses work. Dr Michael has widely traveled to present his group's research findings in international and national conferences and to give invited lectures. He has received many major research grants totaling more than 16 million (1.6 crore) Rupees from national funding agencies like UGC, DBT, DST and OASTC(MoES) and international agencies like Volkswagen Foundation, Hannover, Germany and United Board, New York, USA.
