Amir Sagi, Ph.D., a professor at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, is the winner of the Global Aquaculture Alliance’s (GAA) inaugural Novus Global Aquaculture Innovation Award, sponsored by Novus International.
Dr. Sagi was presented with the award at GAA’s GOAL 2013 conference in Paris, France, on Wednesday, Oct. 9. Dr. Sagi’s innovation – which involves a novel biotechnology application to produce all male populations of the giant freshwater prawn Macrobrachium rosenbergii through temporal RNA interference – was selected over 15 other creative innovations to capture the award.
The six judges selected Dr. Sagi’s innovation as the winner because its application addressed a key obstacle in the production of Macrobrachium rosenbergii – manual sorting of juveniles by gender. The judges felt that this innovation could stimulate expansion in freshwater prawn production without genetic modification or use of exogenous hormones.
