My research interest is improving shrimp aquaculture production through molecular biology approach. The three main projects currently conducted in my laboratory are described below.
Infectious disease is one of the major problems in shrimp aquaculture.
We apply modern recombinant DNA technology to produce disease-resistant strains of shrimp by genetic transformation. The most critical factor of developing a high efficient gene transformation system is the choice of a promoter which directs the expression of the foreign gene in the animal. Our focus is identifying a constitutional cytoplasmic, and also not developmentally regulated promoter from P. vannamei. The positive functional promoter sequences will be used to construct expression vectors for producing transgenic shrimp with desirable traits. A variety of hormonal peptides are synthesized in the X-organ and transported via axonic flow to the sinus gland and released into the hemolymph.