A team of ISU scientists and undergraduates is growing shrimp on campus.

The shrimp are being grown to test a new drug for the prevention and treatment of serious shrimp diseases.

Hank Harris, professor of microbiology, said there are more shrimp imported into the United States than exported, accounting for the second largest trade deficit in the country.

Imported shrimp that are diseased may be treated with drugs not suitable for human consumption.

“The U.S. government is interested in the safety of the food imported as well as the increasing domestic production of quality shrimp,” Harris said.

Harris started the shrimp project, which is funded by the Food and Drug Administration, in November 2002 to find safe drugs that would treat diseased shrimp and not affect human consumers.

Harris is working with Max Rothschild, distinguished professor of animal science, and Bruce Janke, associate professor of veterinary diagnostic and production animal medicine, to determine if a drug called Aquaflor can be used to treat or prevent necrotizing hepatopancreatitis.

Necrotizing hepatopancreatitis is the shrimp disease currently being studied. Two other diseases, white spot virus and Vibrio parahaemolyticus, are scheduled to be studied either this spring or summer.

Brenda Crabtree, junior in microbiology, is helping with the shrimp research.

She said necrotizing hepatopancreatitis is caused by an unnamed intracellular bacteria that attack the shrimp’s cells. For the shrimp to be susceptible, the water temperature and salinity have to be high enough to stress the shrimp, she said.

“Once the shrimp contract [the disease], it takes only about 14 days for them to die, and that’s why it’s such a big problem for shrimp farmers,” said Adrienne Adams, junior in microbiology who is also helping with the shrimp research.

A shipment of disease-free shrimp arrives at Iowa State from the Oceanic Institute in Hawaii about every three months.

Harris said the young shrimp larvae weigh one- to two-tenths of a gram on arrival, and experimentation begins when the shrimp weigh 2 to 3 grams.

“We’ve been studying what concentrations of the pathogen affect the shrimp and how quickly they show symptoms,” said Heather Williams, junior in biology. “We haven’t done drug resistance studies yet.”

The shrimp are raised in animal rooms located on the ground floor of Kildee Hall and in the basement of the Molecular Biology Building, where they live inside plastic tubs filled with a mixture of tap water and sea salt.

After about 14 days, she said, new disease-free shrimp are added in with the diseased shrimp in order to infect the new shrimp with the disease.

“We just leave the old ones in there and let the new ones eat them,” she said. “Shrimp are cannibalistic.”

The shrimp are also fed a high-protein diet in pellet form, and soybeans can make up a large portion of the shrimp food, Harris said.

Shrimp research is not as expensive as livestock research projects and make great research projects for undergraduates, he said.

Harris said even though Iowa is far from the natural habitats of shrimp, there is no reason why Iowa could not be involved in industrialized shrimp production, given a large enough demand for American-grown shrimp.

“Shrimp farming is on the increase due to depletion of wild stocks worldwide,” Harris said.

Harris said the shrimp would have a ready food source available in Iowa soybeans.

Other shrimp research, such as genetically selecting traits in shrimp for disease resistance or faster growth, might also be done at Iowa State in the future, he said.