News & Views Genetics Genetics Week
USDA-ARS researchers honoured for ‘impactful’ genetics work in catfish aquaculture

Southeast area researchers from the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS) received awards during the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC)’s 2024 national meeting on April 10.

The FLC Awards honour the country’s top scientists, researchers, and professionals working in federal technology transfer, which turns cutting-edge research into impactful products and services.

Firstly, research geneticist, Brian Bosworth and research molecular biologist Geoff Waldbieser of the ARS Warmwater Aquaculture Research Unit in Stoneville, MS, were recipients of the impact award. 

Bosworth and Waldbieser produced a line of channel catfish called Delta Select to help catfish farmers breed more genetically improved fish with desirable traits. They developed the Delta Select catfish to have a 25 percent increase in growth rate and 0.9 percent greater carcass yield, two of the most important factors in making catfish farming more economically efficient. 

Research geneticist, Brian Bosworth and research molecular biologist, Geoff Waldbieser of the ARS Warmwater Aquaculture Research Unit in Stoneville, Mississippi, received the Impact Award for their work on producing a line of channel catfish called Delta Select. (Photo: FLC)

In March 2020, ARS released 180,000 pounds (90,000 head) of Delta Select channel catfish to 12 commercial catfish producers which provides U.S. catfish farmers with a product with better performance and increased profitability.

Also, research leader David Suarez of the U.S. National Poultry Research Center’s Exotic and Emerging Avian Viral Disease Research Unit in Athens, GA, received the interagency partnership award. Suarez was part of an interagency team for the “Protecting Wildlife: The California Condor Project.” The interagency team developed and implemented a historic vaccination plan to protect the endangered California condors from Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI).

Researchers plan to continue vaccinating all wild and captive condors against HPAI. Through the determined efforts of the interagency team members, the unique program is helping prevent the extinction of a critically endangered species. The HPAI vaccine is reported to be the first in the U.S. to protect against HPAI and one of the first to protect an endangered species.

Finally, research chemists Soheila J. Maleki and Hsiaopo Cheng of the ARS Southern Regional Research Center’s Food Processing and Sensory Quality Research Unit in New Orleans, LA, received the outstanding research team award. In partnership with Aimmune Therapeutics, Maleki and Cheng developed an oral immunotherapy treatment to desensitize peanut-allergic individuals to peanuts gradually.

Their collaboration led to the pharmaceutical Palforzia®, an oral immunotherapy treatment for peanut allergy sufferers – Palforzia is reported to be the first food to be characterized as a pharmaceutical and the first food-allergy treatment approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

This article is part of the Genetics Week