Dean R. Jerry

Professor Dean Jerry is the Director of the ARC Research Hub for Advanced Prawn Breeding, and Director of the Tropical Futures Institute, James Cook University, Singapore . His primary area of research focus and expertise is in the application of genetic technologies to the improvement of farmed aquatic organisms. He has worked with aquaculture species for 18 years and over this time has built a large internationally recognised research team in aquaculture genetics which has been instrumental in the development of genetic tools and knowledge to inform selective breeding programs for numerous tropical aquatic farmed species. He has acquired over $41 million of external funding, the majority linked to industry projects, and published 150+ scientific articles in the area of aquaculture and genetics. He also currently advises and assists with selective breeding programs for pearl oysters, marine shrimp, barramundi and redclaw crayfish. As a strong advocate for the role aquaculture will play in securing humanity's future protein needs, Prof Jerry is always interested in hearing from people and companies who are seeking to conduct R&D leading to improved efficiencies in aquaculture production. He works with all types of companies from SMEs through to multi-national agribusinesses. Prof Jerry is also pioneering the application of environmental DNA technologies to the detection of rare and invasive aquatic organims in Australia, and in detection of aquaculture pathogens. Current research projects with industry (2019) Unleashing the tiger - advanced breeding to transform prawn aquaculture, ARC Industrial Transformation Research Program (partners Seafarms, Australian Genome Research Facility, USyd, CSIRO) Pearls of wisdom - breeding for increased tolerance to juvenile pearl oyster mortality syndrome, CRC-P for Northern Australia (industry partners Ellies Pearls, Cygnet Bay Pearls, Clipper Pearls) Northern Australia Aquaculture Situational Analysis, CRC for Developing Northern Australia (partners Aust Prawn Farmers Assoc, Aust Barramundi Farmers Assoc, Blueshift Consulting, CSIRO) Biosecurity in northern Australia prawn aquaculture, CRC for Developing Northern Australia (partners Aust Prawn Farmers Assoc) Testing established methods of early prediction in abalone broodstock, Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (partner Aust Abalone Growers Association) Genetic audit of Murray cod broodstock, Innovations Connections (partner Marianvale Cod) Rapid iteration selective breeding : Australia's fish to feed the world, CRC-P (partner Mainstream Aquaculture) Breeding for scale drop resistance in barramundi Lates calcarifer - Understanding the genetic architecture of resistance, Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore Productivity Fund (partner Barramundi Asia) Latest Book - Biology and Culture of Asian seabass Lates calcarifer, CRC Press Areas of interest for prospective graduate students Genomics and selective breeding of aquaculture species Genetic audits of aquaculture species