Health Management in Shrimp Aquaculture
Reframing the Challenge
Major advances in health management have begun to transform how the shrimp industry approaches disease prevention and control. This session will explore the evolution from pathogen-focused strategies toward comprehensive health management systems that combine disease exclusion through Specific Pathogen Free (SPF) stocks with improved tolerance through Specific Pathogen Tolerant (SPT) approaches. Emerging tools such as epigenetic conditioning, rapid field diagnostics, bacteriophage applications, and next-generation vaccines offer additional opportunities to strengthen shrimp health. The session will also review how production practices—including site selection, facility design, water exchange, carrying capacity, and stress management—are increasingly recognized as disease risk factors. The role of regulatory frameworks will also be explored.
Victoria Alday-Sanz is a veterinarian with an M.Sc. and Ph.D. from Stirling University (UK). She has worked for over 35 years on diverse aspects of shrimp and fish biosecurity covering research on pathogens and diseases, diagnostics, sanitary legislation, health management, development of SPF stocks and syndromic surveillance. She has collaborated as an expert for international organizations such as FAO, WOAH, EU, EFSA and WB as well as with the private sector.
Alday-Sanz has lived and work in Southeast Asia, Middle East and Latin America and published over 35 papers in peer review journals, over 50 articles in industry magazines, 5 book chapters, is co-author of the CD-rom Diagnosis of Shrimp Diseases and editor of The Shrimp Book I and II. She was director for Aquaculture Biosecurity for Pescanova where she led the development of a population of “reverse SPF” shrimp (Specific Pathogen Free and Specific Pathogen Tolerant stocks).
Presently, she is the Director for Biosecurity, Breeding programs and Research and Development for the National Aquaculture Group of Saudi Arabia.
Robins McIntosh has been involved in shrimp aquaculture for over 30 years. He was responsible for developing the first zero-water exchange, intensive and revolutionary shrimp farm in Belize. His initial work in shrimp aquaculture was with Weyerhaeuser in Florida and Brazil. Later, after four years developing and managing the algae-to-fuel program for the U.S. DOE, he returned to Asia, where he was involved in the development and management of Thai Hawaiian Hatcheries in Thailand.
Robins is currently employed as Executive Vice President for technical development of shrimp culture within the Charoen Pokphand Group. He joined the Group in 2001 to assist with the restructuring of shrimp culture in Thailand and Southeast Asia. Under his direction, hatcheries were modernized, genetic programs were initiated, and farm management was made more systematic and biosecure. Robins continues to work on increasing the efficiency of shrimp culture and finding solutions to eradicate EMS/APHND and EHP diseases in shrimp. He is today also CEO of Home Grown Shrimp, a US subsidiary of CPF focussed on producing shrimp in indoor facilities in the USA.
Ruben Props is co-founder and CEO of KYTOS group, a start-up and spin-off company hailing from Ghent University, Belgium. He holds a PhD in applied biological sciences from Ghent University where he developed new methodologies for the rapid characterization of microbiomes in natural and engineered aquatic environments. He received a grant from the Belgian American Educational Foundation (Sofina-Gustave Boël fellowship) to pursue PhD research at the University of Michigan (2016-2018) and was granted an FWO postdoctoral fellowship at Ghent University in 2018 to further develop technologies for aquatic microbial research.
Props is widely considered an expert in single-cell analysis technologies and is co-author of 40 A1 peer-reviewed articles on the topic. In 2021, he co-founded the spin-off KYTOS to make these research developments applicable to the aquaculture industry as a “full-service” platform. KYTOS is pioneering the frontier of microbiome management to empower sustainable and thriving food production through Integrated Microbiome Management (IMM) solutions. Today, KYTOS has local teams and operations in three countries, is servicing customers in more than 20 countries, and has processed more than 100,000 samples.
Ha Thanh Dong is an aquaculture pathologist based at the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand. He has been actively working with infectious diseases in tropical aquaculture, including diagnostics, host-pathogen interactions, and vaccine development. He has played a key role in identifying and developing diagnostic methods for numerous infectious pathogens affecting fishes and crustaceans in Asia. Dong’s research extends to nanobubble technology. Recent studies from his research group have revealed novel application of ozone nanobubbles in enhancing animal immunity and oxygen nanobubbles as a muco-adhesive delivery system to deliver vaccine and/or immunostimulants. Research findings from his group have been disseminated in over 130 international publications.
