Development of techniques to culture shrimp haemocytes and purify white spot syndrome virus (WSSV) in order to study WSSV-haemocyte interactions

The knowledge on immunity of farmed crustaceans is still at an early developmental stage when compared to that of terrestrial livestock. There are many fundamental questions that still need to be answered and others are currently under academic debate. In contrast, the shrimp farming industry has experienced a huge expansion in the last four decades. The conjugation of these two factors originated the emergence of many infectious diseases that threaten the sustainable development of the shrimp farming industry. Shrimp viruses are the biggest threat. They are associated with high mortalities, which provoke huge economic losses every year. The solution for these problems requires a deeper knowledge on shrimp immunity