Blog Posts - DEROME LABORATORY

Team Highlights - François-Étienne Sylvain

8/30/2016

François-Étienne Sylvain, M.Sc. student in our laboratory, won two awards at the 16th International Symposium on Microbial Ecology:

Best Poster Award;
JW Costerton Award (for research that best evolves new theories in microbial ecology and wider interdisciplinary significance).

F-E's poster discussed the unique properties of the Discus fish (Symphysodon aequifasciatus), in which the skin mucus feeding behavior at the beginning of their life cycle triggers mammalian-like gut microbiota colonization patterns.

Congratulations F-É !

Team Highlights - Camille Lavoie

8/30/2016

Source: FQSA.ca

The 2016 Pierre-Michel-Fontaine scholarship ($1000) from the Fondation Saumon and the Féderation Québécoise du Saumon Atlantique was awarded to Camille Lavoie, an student from our research group, for her undergraduate research project on the microbiota of farmed juvenile Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) meant for stocking.

For more information about Camille's award and her research, please click here (French).

Congratulations Camille !

New Publication

8/18/2016

The amazonian fish tambaqui (Colossoma macroponum) can survive in waters where pH values are as low as 3. Image: Wikimedia Commons // CC-BY-SA 3.0

.Our research group and colleagues from the INPA (Brazil) recently published an article in Scientific Reports:

"pH drop impacts differentially skin and gut microbiota of the Amazonian fish tambaqui (Colossoma macropomum)"
Authors: François-Étienne Sylvain, Bachar Cheaib, Martin Llewellyn, Tiago Gabriel Correia, Daniel Barros Fagundes, Adalberto Luis Val & Nicolas Derome.

Congratulations to all !

New References on Opportunistic Pathogens of Fish

7/31/2016

Two review chapters authored by our team and colleagues were recently published in Volume 3 of the Advances in Environmental Microbiology series, which is dedicated to opportunistic pathogenicity :

Chapter 4: Bacterial Opportunistic Pathogens of Fish;
Chapter 5: Fungal Secondary Invaders of Fish;

In those chapters, the current knowledge of bacterial and fungal opportunistic diseases in fish is discussed, with prime examples of opportunistic pathogens of special interest in aquaculture (Aeromonas spp., Vibrio spp., Saprolegnia spp., Loma salmonae, etc.).

In both chapters, we stress the importance of studying crosstalks between host, microbiota and environmental factors; not only for a better understanding of opportunistic pathogens, but also to help developing novel strategies for mitigating those diseases.

Team Highlights - Jeff Gauthier

6/14/2016

Congratulations to Jeff Gauthier who received a doctoral scholarship from the Fonds de recherche Québec - Nature et technologies.

Jeff's Ph. D. will allow research and development of endogenous probiotic-based therapeutic tools against opportunistic infections in salmonid aquaculture.

Team Highlights - Sarah El Khoury

3/29/2016

Sarah El Khoury, Ph.D. student in our research group, won two prizes for her poster presentation on probiotic-based therapeutic strategies against honeybee parasitic diseases at the CRIBIQ Colloquium on Biosecurity and Alternatives to Antimicrobials in Animal Production. Sarah won:

Poster Excellence Contest (CAD $500);
Public's Favorite Poster (CAD $100).

Congratulations Sarah !

Derome Lab @ CRIBIQ 2016 - Come see us!

3/14/2016

Students from our research group will attend the CRIBIQ Symposium on Biosecurity and Alternatives to Antibiotics in Animal Production (March 15th and 16th, Orford, Quebec, Canada). Here are the posters that will be presented by us (titles translated from French):

Jeff Gauthier (Derome Lab, U. Laval)
FishProbio: Alternative and sustainable stra-tegy against Aeromonas salmonicida, a major opportunistic pathogen of farmed salmonids.
Sarah El Khoury (Derome Lab, U. Laval)
Endogenous probiotics as an alternative strategy for disease control in domestic honeybees (Apis mellifera mellifera).

Aquaponics Research in Canadian TV Spotlight

1/7/2016

Research from Grant Vandenberg, Martine Dorais and Nicolas Derome on aquaponics will soon be broadcasted on public Canadian television. (Radio-Canada: January 9th, 5 PM)

Aquaponics is a unique blend of agriculture and fish farming, in which the waste water from the fish basins are reused as a water source and fertilizer for plants. Plants cultivated in such a system benefit from the unique fertilizer and biocontrol properties of the used water.

Lunch Conference on Microbiota (Nicolas Derome @ U. Laval)

11/18/2015

On Nov 20th (next Friday), I will give a conference talk for the AEBBMUL (Université Laval).

Where? VCH-3860, Pavillon Vachon, U. Laval, Quebec.
When? Nov. 20th, 12h30.

Fish Microbiomes: The Silent Majority
Gut microbes outnumber the cells of their hosts by a 10:1 ratio. In humans, those microbes can provide up to 200,000 unique genes that play a role in improving host metabolic and immune functions, for instance. My talk will address the indispensable functions of the microbiota, with special emphasis on the current knowledge of host-microbiota interactions in fish.

Microbiota under Canadian TV Spotlight

10/7/2015

Logo (c) ICI Radio-Canada.

Host-microbiota interactions, a theme of special interest to our research group, were recently covered by French-Canadian science TV show Découverte. Attention was brought to the human microbiota, this "invisible organ made of billions of bacteria, which influences our health, our mood, and even our behavior, and without which we can not live".

The episode is freely available on the Radio-Canada WebTV platform TOU.TV:
http://ici.tou.tv/decouverte/S2015E02?lectureauto=1