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Aug 15, 2018

AquAdvantage Salmon's journey to market: Still making history

Making History is what AquaBounty Technologies has been doing ever since it was created in 1991. Originally named AF Protein (for antifreeze protein, the original focus of research), the Company was created to commercialize a fast-growing Atlantic salmon. This salmon, created using recombinant DNA technology by a team of scientists based at Memorial University of Newfoundland, in St. John’s, NL, Canada, grows to market size (4-5 kg) in about 18 months, instead of the 28-36 months it takes for conventional farmed Atlantic salmon. The basis for the rapid growth is the AquAdvantage gene construct. This single growth hormone gene from Chinook salmon and promoter sequence from ocean pout, when integrated into the Atlantic salmon genome, enabled the Atlantic salmon to grow continuously to adult size in record time, with the added advantage of using 25% less feed. This product was named AquAdvantage® Salmon (AAS).  Read the article.