How did you come to be involved in this industry?
A vet customer suggested that ioLight should attend the International Symposium on Aquatic Animal Health on Prince Edward Island, Canada in September 2018. Delegates were really excited by our microscope and we immediately realised just how useful a portable microscope was to aquaculture vets. We took several orders there on the stand and met Corpavet, from Colombia, which is now one of our most successful distributors.
What exactly makes ioLight’s microscopes so innovative and a wise investment for those looking to monitor the health of their fish?
The ioLight microscope is the only pocket microscope capable of imaging cells. For the first time, a professional instrument with a resolution of one micron can go absolutely anywhere a vet can go. The images are displayed on a smartphone screen and can be shared instantly. It is the only microscope that can practically be used on the side of a holding pen, lake or river or in a small boat. This means that vets can diagnose pathology immediately without referring to a lab.
What would you say are the biggest challenges when dealing with complex analysis tools and/or monitoring animal health?
Global population growth to 8.5 billion people by 2030 linked with pressure to stop climate change in the same timeframe. This means growing more food on less land so that we can reverse deforestation. This, in turn, puts huge pressure on farm productivity across crop, livestock and aquaculture sectors.
To meet this challenge, it is essential that the diagnosis and treatment of disease are immediate and on the farm, not in the slow lab. So diagnostic monitoring tools need to get much simpler, not more complex. In the future, rapid diagnoses in remote fish farms will be made by a technician using diagnostic assistance tools and supported by a remote veterinary specialist.
Do you think it’s important to see more young people coming into the fold of businesses such as yours?
Absolutely! Any technology business needs a wide diversity of talent to grow quickly. Young people tend to be more dynamic and less worried about making mistakes, so they are really important to rapid growth in businesses like ours.
How do ioLight microscopes increase productivity for those working in the aquaculture industry?
Pathology spreads frighteningly quickly in large numbers of fish held in a small area. An example is Gyrodactylus salaris, or salmon fluke, a microscopic parasite that feeds on the flesh and mucus of salmon and other freshwater fish. It has caused mortalities of up to 98 percent in wild Atlantic salmon populations in Norway.
Disease like this has to be detected and treated very quickly or it can easily destroy an entire stock, decimating productivity. The ioLight microscope, in the hands of an expert vet, can instantly diagnose disease at the pen side so that it can be treated before it spreads.
Interestingly, ioLight’s microscopes integrate and work with smartphones and tablets- could you tell us more about how this technology works and what it does exactly?
The ioLight microscope needed a very high-resolution screen to view subjects clearly. Modern phones and tablets have fantastic screens and they get better every year, so the microscope is future proof. Furthermore, tablets and phones are internet-connected, so it is really easy to share the image from the screen to collaborators anywhere in the world using common research databases or even standard apps like Instagram.
The ioLight microscope makes its own wireless hotspot so any phone or tablet can simply connect to this to display one-micron images and HD video.
What do you see as a possible challenge that the aquaculture industry may face over the next five years and how will your company play a part in prevention or solving it?
The biggest challenge across food production over the next five years will be growing more high-quality food on less land. This is a real opportunity for aquaculture because of the huge potential for sustainable expansion. However, remote fish pens are more susceptible to disease and will need to be carefully monitored.
ioLight helps vets to diagnose disease rapidly at the side of the fish cages so it can be treated instantly without needing to take a sample to the lab then return later for treatment. This will minimise the loss of stock to disease and so increase productivity.
What makes your company stand out from its competitors? Do you have any projects or plans that we should look out for over the coming year from you and your company?
Currently, ioLight is the only microscope that can produce lab-grade images with one-micron resolution, from a pocket microscope that can go anywhere a vet can go.
We are excited about the potential for automatic image processing that would help a veterinary technician to diagnose basic conditions in remote locations far from a lab or veterinary clinic. This technology is already widely available, and we are looking for partners to help us implement field trials.
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