WWW.WA S .ORG • WORLD AQUACULTURE • JUNE 2022 49 such as these less acceptable. In response to these problems, aquatic species like fish, salamanders, frogs and sea slugs have seen increasing use over the past few decades in genetic studies. Now agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) invest billions of dollars into research using these animals (called “biomedical models”). Because of their relative late entry into this area, most aquatic species do not have facilities such as germplasm repositories to protect against losses of valuable genetics due to accidents or disease, and the resources are mostly maintained as live animals. The most important biomedical aquatic species is the zebrafish, with more than 60,000 different types (called “lines”) developed by researchers around the world. That number of lines is beyond the capabilities of even large facilities such as the Zebrafish International Resource Center (ZIRC, at the University of Oregon) to maintain. Personnel at the AGGRC have assisted ZIRC in developing a repository at their facility with funding from NIH. Based on this success, the AGGRC has begun to expand repository efforts to the other research models that have NIH-funded national centers: salamanders (Ambystoma at the University of Kentucky), frogs (Xenopus at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute), swordtails and platyfish (Xiphophorus at Texas State University, San Marcos) and sea slugs (Aplysia at the University of Miami). Although it may seem strange, aquatic animal models such as these (Fig. 3) will play an ever-increasing role in disease research in the future, and they are already leading to breakthroughs in a variety of fields. Technology Development Based on more than 15 years of interdisciplinary work, a unique technology program has been developed at the AGGRC. The goal is to provide innovative solutions to tackle real challenges encountered in germplasm repository development that would be otherwise difficult to be solved by traditional biological research. Central to this is the concept of “open technologies” that can be used to address problems by development of user, maker and developer communities. Collectively these communities can develop open hardware in a distributed (i.e., non-centralized) fashion that can yield aggregate throughput comparable to facilities that specialize in expensive high-throughput capabilities. This is through use of consumer-level tools, supplies, software and equipment, free exchange of designs and modifications and a shared sense of mission mediated through internet platforms. This means that existing groups, such as cryopreservation researchers or fish hatcheries with unsatisfied needs, can gain new ways to address those needs in a progression where they adopt open hardware and become user communities of the new modalities. Moving forward, they can become makers to share, produce and distribute designs, and eventually become developers to modify and improve hardware. Overall, open technologies are based on rapid and continued sharing of advances among communities based FIGURE 5. Cryopreservation of aquatic species is usually done at small scale, mostly for research. The AGGRC is a world leader in developing approaches for high-throughput production at a commercial scale. This is based on expensive, automated equipment (used for dairy bull semen) available for use with samples or animals that are shipped to the Center. These capabilities have also been made available in a mobile, trailer-based format (top panel) to bring commercial-scale processing to cooperating facilities. Planning is necessary before doing these kinds of large-scale work and the AGGRC has adapted industrial modeling software used for factories and manufacturing to map the processes for applications such managing genetic resources including information flow for oyster hatcheries and farms (bottom panel). FIGURE 6. The AGGRC has developed in-house digital media studios to expand outreach capabilities. Novel technologies such as 3-D printed devices that can be used to make standardized cryopreservation available to user communities require Assembly and Training Manuals to get people started (left panel). Digital media capabilities also allow specialized setups to record animal behavior such as courtship of axolotls overnight in a temperature-controlled room (right panel). This allows AGGRC to carry projects from biological research to engineering design through distribution. ( C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 5 0 )
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