UNIVERSITI TUN HUSSEIN ONN MALAYSIA

ASSIGNMENT
SEMESTER I
SESI 2017/2018

COURSE NAME : ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGIST

AND SOCIETY

COURSE CODE : BNN

PROGRAMME : 4 BNN

SUBMISSION DATE : 10 OCTOBER 2017

LECTURER : DR. MAZATUSZIHA BT AHMAD

TOPIC : AQUACULTURE BIOTECHNOLOGY

MEMBERS MATRIX NUMBER

AHMAD DANIAL FITRI BIN OTHMAN AN140044
KOGULAN A/L SUBRAMANIAM AN140115
NURUL AISYAH BINTI ABD HADI AN140024
A1. Why the Aquaculture Biotechnology Is Chosen?

Aquaculture biotechnology could bring us closer to achieving the growing

demands of world aquaculture. These include the global needs of increased food
production, discovery and development of new natural resources. The reason for this
topic to be chosen is that the aquaculture is the farming and the husbandry of aquatic
organisms and as it is the fastest growing food sector in the world with its increasing
role for the economy and safe food strategy of the countries.
Due to depletion of the fish stocks farming of aquatic organisms is now a
substantial global industry supplying a significant proportion of the aquatic food
consumed. Aquaculture outputs will need to be enhanced several foods in order to
meet the rising demands for fish and aquatic products. Biotechnology in this field
seems to be good potential for increasing aquaculture activity for example with the
presence of fish breeding technology and biotechnology in aquaculture offers
valuable applications that could in improve selective breeding hybridization
production and health to the in terms of the aquaculture.

A2. The Importance of the Fish Breeding In the Aquaculture Biotechnology and
the Significance to Society, Engineering and Technologist

The importance of aquaculture biotechnology is that it ensures that a constant

supply of aquatic species for human consumption cannot be overstated. Other
benefits of this technology to the society is that medical research into the health
benefits of frequently eating fish is plentiful for example the Omega-3 fatty acids that
mainly found in fish also reduce many forms of cancer and promote healthy brain
tissue and also reduced the risk factors of heart disease that are actually much more
healthier that protein from livestock which is actually beneficial to the society. The
use of fish breeding technology for the farming of the fish will eventually increase
the production of the fish population that will beneficial to the society when we
compared to other agricultural technologies.
The significance of the aquaculture biotechnology and the fish breeding
technology to the engineering is that aquaculture biotechnology could bring us closer
to achieving the growing demands of world aquaculture. These include the global
needs of increased food production, discovery and development of new natural
resources as well as awareness of the diminishing biodiversity and detrimental
effects of modern society on the environment. In the following review some of the
different areas of aquaculture which are being affected will be described. Examples,
including those from our own research, will be given in an attempt to demonstrate
the versatility of these new approaches. Engineering in terms of aquaculture
biotechnology is concerned with improving the quality of human life by developing
and maintaining complex physical infrastructures necessary for the functioning of the
modern society. The importance of engineering to the rapidly developing coastal and
inland aquaculture industry cannot be over stressed and also the inadequate
application engineering in aquaculture fish farms. Engineering in aquaculture covers
a very large area of knowledge and involves many general engineering specialisms
such as mechanical engineering, environmental engineering, materials technology,
genetic technology instrumentation, and monitoring, and building design and
construction. The primary aim of aquaculture engineering is to utilize technical
engineering knowledge and principles in aquaculture and biological production
systems.
The significance of the aquaculture biotechnology and fish breeding towards
technologist is the application of new technology that related to aquaculture has been
used and increased the demand of technologist job in the aquaculture industry. Many
factors have made this growth possible. One of it is the development within the field
of aquaculture with help of technology for example improvements in technology
allowing reduced consumption of freshwater and development of re-use systems.
Another is the development of offshore cages: sites that until a few years ago not
were viable for aquaculture purposes can be used today with good results. The focus
on economic efficiency and the fact the salaries are increasing have also resulted in
the increased use of technology to reduce staff numbers. The development of new
aquaculture species would not have been possible without the contribution of the
fisheries technologist. Even if some techniques can be transferred for the farming of
new species, there will always be a need for technology to be developed and
optimized for each species. An example of this is the development of production
tanks for flatfish with a larger bottom surface area than those used for pelagic fish.

3
A3. Role of Technologist as An Agent of Development to the Selected
Technology

Fish breeding amount can be boosted by injecting Gonadotropin Releasing

Hormone (GnRH) into fish. This is because this hormone can initiate the
reproductive cascade in all verterbrates. GnRH can be obtained by isolating it from
pig and sheep hypothalami with the ability to follicle simulating hormone (FSH). In
aquaculture field, number of chemical analogues have been prepared and one of them
is salmon GnRH analogues used now in fish breeding and marked commercially
under the name of Ovaprim. Nowadays, culturable fish in land locked water do not
breed until the hormones induce the. The induce breeding of fish is now successfully
achieved by the development of GnRH technology.
A technologist can isolate GnRH from the best breed of salmon to get the
most efficient performance to control the rate of fishs breeding. Most companies
today want a controlled fish breeding rate. This is because too much fish could cause
overpopulated of locked water and thus making the water unhealthy for the creature
to live. This could cause a major loss to the company if the water needs to be
changed and the fish goes dead. In addition, uncontrolled rate of fish breeding could
lead to too much budget goes to food supply of fish. This is the role of technologist
to control fish breeding.
Manipulation of chromosome set offers many future possibilities for the
production of high performance fish. At present age, the induction of triploidy is used
to produce sterile grass carp for the specific task of weed clearance and sterile
rainbow trout to meet market for larger trout. As a techonologist, endcorine
masculinization could be the first step in the generation of monosex females stocks.
Adrogenesis could be used but is techincally more difficult to produce supermales in
male heterogametic species thus facilitating the production of all males stocks.
Cloning the supermales could also be researched to optimize the breeding og high
performance fish. In the industrial market, technologist can control the size of fish
that is being marketed by the company. The help of triploidy can make profit for the
company and high performance fish can last longer thus can also decrease the loss of
pre-sold fish.

4
 A combination of endocrine and genetic technologies is now used on a
routine basis to produce monosex female chinook salmon and rainbow trout, this
simultaneously eliminate the problem of undersized males. On the other hand,
monosex male tilapia is routinely used in several countries to limit reproduction in
the pond of this species. Non-aromatizable androgens will be used as masculinizing
agents and non-streoidal aromatase inhibitors may also be utilized. Y-specific-Dna
probes will be developed and applied in additional fish species where one sex is
more desirable for culture or more valuable in marketplace will be grown in monosex
culture. A technologist can control the rate of fish breeding using this method also.
Fast breeding fish like tilapia can be controlled by controlling the genetic of the said
species. Controlled fish breedings rate is favourable for a lot of companies in the
industries field now.
Nutrition is an area of critical importance in aqualculture as the feed costs
amount is almost half of operating costs in intensive culture. The technologists can
modify and supplement plant protein sources to enable their substitution for fish
meal in aquaculture diets has led to partial substitution of plant for fish protein in
salmonid and catfish diets. Practical diets will be developed where suitably modified
plant protein sources totally replace fish meal.
In the area of fish health the development of vaccines against vibriosis and
furunculosis has had a major impact on the survival of salmonids during net pen
culture and has reduced the utilization of antibiotics. Also, the application of
biotechnology to disease daignostics has led to the development of very sensitive
diagnostic procedures based upon fluorescent antibodies, enzyme linked
immunoassays and the polymerase chain reaction.

5
A4. Relationship between the Ethics and Professionalism of Engineering
Technologist with the Selected Technology

Engineering ethics is the field of applied ethics and system of moral principles
that apply to the practice of engineering. Ethics is divided into three categories which
are ethics of engineers to the public, to their clients, to the employees and to the
profession. Industrial employers must control the ethics and growing professionalism
in their employees. Every engineers or technologist must be licensed or passed
special legislation reserving title rights to organization of professional engineers or
technologist. Besides, every engineering technologist is given ethics education and
uphold the ethical practice before introduced to the society or industry. Many
engineering professionalism societies have prepared codes of ethics and basically the
general principles of the codes of ethics are similar across the various engineering
societies.
Many of the oceans and natural freshwater fisheries are being harvested to
their limit. Many major fish stocks are showing precipitous declines in productivity
due to overfishing. The world fisheries are in a period of crisis. As a result of factors
such as population growth, urbanization, and rising per capita incomes, world fish
consumption are getting increase every year. Taking into account indications that
capture fisheries are close to or have already reached their potential, the world is
looking toward aquaculture and its technologies to fulfil the expanding food demand.
Therefore, engineering technologist should help to solve this current problem.
Technologist should try their best in providing enough fish for the world with limited
land and water space. Engineering technologist must act in professionalism matters
for serving the consumer as faithful agents and carry the work efficiently. Besides,
they must use the knowledge and skill learned for the enhancement of this
aquaculture technology for the wellbeing of present and future generation.
However, technologist should not take for granted and shall avoid any
conflicts of interest to the consumers since the global demand for fish and fishery
products is predicted to continue to increase due to slow stagnant of fish. Although
aquaculture industry is the fastest growing of the animal food producing sectors but
the technologist should work on minimizing the costs of fish and even providing the
cheapest protein food supply. By 2020, aquaculture is expected to supply 41% of the
global food fish production compared to 3.9% in 1970 and 29.9% in 2002. As a

6
result, prices are expected to rise, it has been predicted that fish prices will increase
and by 2020, prices for mollusks, finfish, and crustaceans are expected to increase by
4% to 16% (Delgado and others 2002; FAO 2008).
Furthermore, the rate of aquaculture production is increasing globally, but the
question remains whether the industry can continue to grow in a sustainable manner.
That is why technologist must have some ethics which is honesty, integrity and
professionalism in their work so that the food security can be achieved. The
engineering technologist should protect the health, safety and welfare of the
consumer and shall strive to comply with the principles of sustainable development
in aquaculture technologies. They must reject any new paper that suggest an idea that
is intended to harm as well as avoid any situation that might be hazardous or
threatening to the environment and human beings. They also must ensure that the
work is complied with the standard provided by the law so that the health and safety
of the human and environment can be protected.
The fish produced must be healthy and not give a side effect to the consumer
as well does not give impact on the environment while utilizing a lesser amount of
land space. A deep research about aquaculture technology by the engineering
technologist must be conducted before applying to the society. For example, use of
transgenic organisms in aquaculture is a very controversial topic due to a number of
environmental and human health concerns such as escapement and introduction of
genetically modified organisms into the food chain. In response by engineer, some
transgenic research has been focused on inducing sterility to reduce the risk of
transgenic organisms breeding with wild species.
Lastly, every engineering technologist must avoid bribery, fraud and political
corruption in even a single thing that they do. They must act with a zero tolerance for
it and strive for justice. This is because engineering technologist must build their
professional reputation, uphold and enhance the honour, integrity and dignity on the
merit of the job as well as not compete unfairly with others.

7
A5. Conclusion

Capture fisheries have experienced slow to stagnant growth in recent years,

the world population has been increasing, with subsequent rises in demands for
marine based foods. This is why engineering technologist need to pay attention on
aquaculture biotechnology because it is one of the chances for alleviating potential
food shortages where it has experienced rapid worldwide expansion. In order to
satisfy the increasing demands for fish as food, progress must occur towards greater
aquaculture productivity, reduce production costs whilst retaining the wild and
farmed genetic resources that underpin global fish production.
Moreover, the engineering technologist should continue to pay attention to the
aquaculture biotechnology because they need to help in finding the correct methods
for improvement in aquaculture, and discuss their virtues and shortcomings.
Engineering technologist is also need to facilitate the development of the aquaculture
industry by lowering costs and increasing both quality and yield. Both engineer and
technologist must work together on this project of fish breeding so that it will
improve the productivity of the aquaculture industry. Traditional farmers also must
be encouraged to exchange their traditional breeding practices for new technologies
because it will increase the genetic diversity of fish. Scientifically, engineering
technologist is need to increased growth rates of fish, feed conversion efficiency,
disease resistance and their cold tolerance.

8
REFERENCES

FAO, 2008: Aquaculture development. 5. Genetic resource management. Vol. FAO

Technical Guidelines for Responsible Fishereis No. 5, Suppl. 3 FAO, Rome,
p. 125.

Kang, X. U., Wei, D., Jun, X., Min, T. A. O., Chun, Z., Yun, L. I. U., & Shaojun, L.
I. U. (2015). Development and application of biological technologies in fish
genetic breeding, 58(2), 187201.

Lind, C. E., & Ponzoni, R. (2012). Selective Breeding in Fish and Conservation of
Genetic Resources for Aquaculture Selective Breeding in Fish and
Conservation of Genetic Resources for Aquaculture, (February 2014).

Omole, I. A. (2017). Biotechnology as an Important Tool for Improving Fish

Productivity, 5(1), 1722.

Rasmussen, R. S., & Morrissey, M. T. (2007). Comprehensive Reviews in Food

Science and Food Safety Biotechnology in Aquaculture : Transgenics and
Polyploidy, 6.