Top award to scientist

Professor Chris Secombes of the University of Aberdeen was last week presented with the Royal Society of Edinburgh's highly regarded Alexander Ninian Bruce Prize which is awarded just once every four years for meritorious research. The work of Professor Secombes has been instrumental in showing that fish have a sophisticated immune system that can be manipulated. These advances in our understanding have opened up major opportunities in the aquaculture industry for the development and refinement of vaccines for farmed fish. Professor Secombes was the first to describe the actions of the molecules in fish that coordinate their immune responses and has also discovered novel peptides which act like a natural antibiotic in fish. Professor Secombes, said it was a great honour to receive the award. He added

"Fish farming is of major economic significance to Scotland and furthering our understanding of the immune systems of fish so that we can develop and refine vaccines to protect them is of huge importance to the industry."