Kathleen Frisch is one of three Cermaq researchers to gain doctorates. The others are Sverre Bang Småge, left, and Øyvind Brevik.

Fish health specialist earns PhD and promotion

Former Cermaq Canada fish health technical manager Kathleen Frisch is to return to north America as the company’s fish health director after transferring to Cermaq’s R&D department in Norway in 2015 to complete an industrial PhD from the University of Bergen.

Published Last updated

Qualified veterinarian Frisch, who has a Masters in Aquatic Veterinary Studies from the University of Stirling, was one of two members of Cermaq’s five-strong fish health research group in Bergen to successfully defend their doctoral theses this week. The other is aqua medicine biologist Sverre Bang Småge.

They have both worked on issues that are directly relevant to Cermaq and to the aquaculture industry. The two have been partly funded by the Norwegian Research Council whilst employed by Cermaq.

Ina press release, Cermaq explained that Frisch and Småge have performed their research on the bacterial group Tenacibaculum. In British Columbia (BC), Canada, Tenacibaculum maritimum causes a disease similar to gum disease in mammals. The disease usually occurs in smolts in the first months after transfer to saltwater net-pens and is the main reason for the use of antibiotics in BC.

Frisch’s PhD is titled “Mouthrot in farmed Atlantic salmon” and Småge’s is “Tenacibaculosis in Norwegian farmed Atlantic salmon”.

Bacterial isolates

“In my work, I have demonstrated that the bacterial isolates from BC can be divided into two separate groups, which are genetically closely related to isolates from lumpfish in Norway, as well as salmon in Chile. By developing a challenge model for salmon, I showed that it is the bacterium T. maritimum that causes the disease in BC and that this bacterium can easily be transferred from sick to healthy individuals,” said Frisch, a French, British and Canadian national who gained her Veterinary Science degree from the University of Melbourne in 2009.

Another member of Cermaq’s Bergen research team, Øyvind Brevik, successfully defended his PhD thesis last month. In his thesis Brevik adapted methods for gene sequencing technologies for intracellular bacteria.

The information will be used to develop vaccines and new testing practices to combat Salmon Rickettsial Septicemia (SRS).