Our Facilities

Experimental Facilities

Cefas’ state-of-the-art Experimental Aquarium Facilities are authorised to operate as an Aquaculture Production Business by the Fish Health Inspectorate (FHI) and comply with rigorous UK Home Office (HO) standards. It offers world-class biosecure tank and aquarium facilities and is run by a dedicated team of aquarists who have experience with fish, mollusc, crustacean and amphibian husbandry. The facility consists of over 200 tanks of 1000, 300, 50 and 30 litres and bespoke combinations/arrangements of tanks are available on request. All tanks can be supplied with either flow-through freshwater or seawater (35ppt) or any intermediate salinities, with partial or full recirculation systems if required. Both the temperature and light settings are computer controlled: temperature 5 – 35°C (± 0.1°C) and flexible, dimmable lighting to replicate any location in the world (with dawn/dusk effects). In-tank cameras are available on request. All our tanks and plants are automatically alarmed and our service includes a 24-hour 7-day, 365 days callout. In addition to the aquarium facility, the Weymouth laboratory also rears in house stocks of rainbow trout, Atlantic salmon and other species in the Aquatic Production Unit (APU); ensuring high quality, disease free animals throughout the year. 

Bacteriology and Virology

As a team of skilled microbiologists, molecular biologists and immunologists we use the unique bio-secure aquaria facility in the Cefas Weymouth Laboratory to culture, study and characterise key diseases of both viral and non-viral pathogens and we undertake studies on emerging diseases of unknown aetiology though experimental challenge and metagenomic studies.  We also undertake infection studies of aquatic animals in our state-of-the art challenge facilities at a range of temperatures, salinities and light regimes.

For antimicrobial sensitivity testing and AMR evaluation, we have semi-automated broth microdilution-based minimum inhibitory concentration and disc diffusion-based testing and reading systems. In addition, we offer Maldi-TOF Mass spectrometry, as well as molecular methods including whole genome sequencing and metagenomics.  Diagnostics using traditional culture and isolation on bacteriological media are also available. 

Genomics

The Cefas Genomics Facility provides capacity for next generation sequencing at our laboratories at Weymouth and at the Exeter Science Park.  The Facility offers both short (Illumina) and long (Oxford Nanopore) read sequencing platforms, as well as Bioinformatics support to assist with analysis and interpretation of results. We can adapt our technical support to fit your experimental needs, and will work with you on wider project experiment design as part of research and development.
Examples of our capabilities include: Whole genome and whole transcriptome sequencing; Metagenomics; Target enrichment and targeted amplicon sequencing; Methylation and ‘eNA’ sequencing.

If we cannot meet your requirements internally, the Cefas Sequencing Framework provides access to alternative external suppliers who have different platforms and capacity to deliver your work based on your specifications