College of Fisheries dean, KM Shankar, said that the institute will transfer technology of white spot virus detection in shrimp, known as the RapiDot Diagnostic Kit, to Virbac Animal Health Care Limited, Mumbai on March 8, TimesofIndia reports.
S Ayyappan, secretary, Department of Agricultural Research and Education and Director General, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi will transfer technology to the multinational French company involved in animal and fish health care, he said.
"The RapiDot is a farmer level monoclonal antibody based flow through technology for detection of shrimp white spots. It is a time tested technology developed by department of aqua culture and evaluated in farms in India and outside since 2006. The technology has been developed with funding assistance from Department of Bio technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, New Delhi. White spot diseases cause an estimated loss of Rs 500 crores to the shrimp culture industry in India," Shankar said.
Beside RapiDot Kit, for white spot virus of shrimp, the college has also developed four similar monoclonal antibody based test kits for aquatic pathogens which are in the pipeline for transfer to industry. Furthermore, a novel bio film oral vaccine technology supposed to be first time in the world, developed initially with assistance from the International Foundation for Science, Sweden and further standardized with ICAR and DBT support is under negotiation to transfer to M/S Virbac Animal Healthcare Ltd., he added.
The Ministry of Science and Technology, Department of Biotechnology had presented the bio tech product and process development and commercialisation award 2013 to KM Shankar for the technology.
