AquaBounty is developing advanced-hybrid salmon, trout, and tilapia designed to grow faster than traditional fish. AquAdvantage® Salmon (AAS) grows twice as fast as wild Atlantics, reaching market weight in a year and a half instead of three. Mature AAS are indistinguishable from their conventional counterparts. This advancement provides a compelling economic benefit to farmers (reduced growing cycle) as well as enhancing the economic viability of inland operations, thereby diminishing the need for ocean pens. AAS are also reproductively sterile, which eliminates the threat of interbreeding amongst themselves or with native populations, a major recent concern in dealing with fish escaping from salmon farms.
The fish contains a single copy of a DNA sequence that includes code for a Chinook salmon growth hormone and regulatory sequences derived from Chinook salmon and the eel-like ocean pout. Whereas Atlantic salmon normally stop growing in the winter, the GM fish produces growth hormones throughout the year. Developer AquaBounty Technologies, based in Waltham, Massachusetts, has spent more than a decade shepherding the fish towards approval in a new regulatory landscape.
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