By Dr. Hanping Wang
Aquaculture Program Leader
In 2021, the Ohio Center for Aquaculture Research and Development (OCARD) at The Ohio State University South Centers won a national competition for aquaculture research grant dollars from the USDA.
USDA funds only four aquaculture projects each year in the areas of genetics, nutrition, disease, and aquaculture system. OCARD won the award of $300,000 in the genetics category for 2021. This grant will be used for refining the technology for production of commercial-scale, fast-growing monosex yellow perch, and demonstration of their growth and production vs. mixed sex populations for the aquaculture industry.
In addition, OCARD completed and submitted five new grant proposals to USDA, National Academy of Science (NAS), NOAA, Ohio Sea Grant, and Soybean Aquaculture Alliance in 2021.
Three publications win excellence awards
Three research papers from OCARD won scientific excellence awards from Benha University in 2021. Former aquaculture PhD student at OSU South Centers Dr. Hiam Elabd is the first author of those papers and South Centers aquaculture staff Hong Yao, Paul O’Bryant, and Dean Rapp are co-authors. Dr. Hanping Wang is corresponding author.
Three research papers from OCARD and former OCARD PhD student Dr. Hiam Elabd (the 2nd from right)’s dissertation (advised by Dr. Hanping Wang) won scientific excellence awards of Benha University in 2021.
Aquaculture Genetics Lab on Dean’s List
The Aquaculture Genetics Laboratory at OSU South Centers received the 2021 Dean’s List Award of Achievement, recognizing the laboratory’s safety research operation and management. This is the second time the laboratory received this honor. South Centers staff Hong Yao is the manager of the laboratory and has put a lot of effort and hard work into management of the lab research, operations, and equipment.