By Allan Maurer

WINSTON-SALEM, NC—The $480 million U.S. Catfish farming industry loses up to 30 percent of its total annual yield worth $135 million to infectious diseases not diagnosed in time to save the fish. Aqualutions, a Wake Forest University spinout, wants to raise $250,000 to help it fix that problem.

Founder and current CEO Sarah Yocum, 23, a former biology and chemistry major at WFU, says the two-year old company has raised about $50,000 through grants and business plan competitions so far. The company plans to apply for at least one large research grant each term.

Catfish, the most farmed fish species in the United States, die in large numbers from a variety of bacterial infections. Farmers try to prevent this, says Yocum, by dumping excessive amounts of antibiotics—$42.5 million worth annually—into the fishponds.

While preventing some fish loss, it also results in bacterial resistance that reduces the effectiveness of later treatments and has also drawn negative attention from consumer advocate groups,

Kits work on site
Aqualutions is developing diagnostic kits that allow fish farmers to test their ponds on site instead of offsite laboratories. This, explains Yocum, would allow the farmers to make timely decisions about when to start and stop antibiotic treatments, improving the effectiveness.

They would also save money on expensive antibiotics and have better control over their sales schedule, since fish cannot be harvested or sold for 23 days after antibiotic treatment.

Aqualutions is also developing a Catfish nutraceutical that boosts their immune systems to help fight off infections.

The company is working on prototypes of its products and testing them through collaborations with Mississippi Catfish farms. While the current Aqualutions products target Catfish, the company expects to move on to trout, salmon, and other species and the global aquaculture marketplace.

Yocum points out that Aqualutions is unique in that it evolved from technology spun-out from an undergraduate laboratory at Wake Forest, made possible by the Kaufmann initiative that foster’s entrepreneurship.

Yocum says the company needs the $250,000 investment to fund beta testing, allow for final product development and hire a management team, including a CEO.

For more information see: www.aqualutions.net.

Allan Maurer, TechJournal South editor can be reached at: allan@techjournalsouth.com

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