Deakin expert to join global aquaculture firm

After travelling around the world to pursue his study of biochemistry and fish nutrition, Dr Fernando Norambuena is preparing to return to Chile to take up a research position as Senior Scientist with the BioMar Group, one of the world’s largest fish food suppliers.

As Senior Associate Research Fellow in Aquaculture Biochemistry in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Dr Norambuena has worked closely with supervisor Associate Professor Giovanni Turchini in the Nutrition Group at the Warrnambool campus over the past three years.

“Deakin has been a great place to do post-doctoral research,” he said. “It has been a very supportive environment, especially from Associate Professor Turchini. My time at Deakin has given me the opportunity to undertake mature research and gain the strengths I needed to obtain a senior research position in the feed industry.”

Associate Professor Turchini said that Dr Norambuena had “very quickly integrated with Deakin and the Warrnambool team,” collaborating in several industry-related projects and simultaneously driving his more "blue sky" research interests on the roles of arachidonic acid for fish living in a changing environment.

“We will greatly miss Fernando, but at the same time we know that we will keep working with him, possibly through exciting new research opportunities between Deakin and BioMar and the Chilean aquaculture industry,” said Assoc Prof Turchini.

Dr Norambuena was born and raised in southern Chile, but his passion for fisheries research has taken him to Norway, Spain, Scotland and Australia.

At Deakin, his efforts have focussed on identifying the specific lipids that fish require for good health, and exploring potential byproducts that can be used to provide raw materials for fish food, such as algae (seaweed), and rendered animal products.

He has also worked on fish capacity to cope with changing environments, including high water temperature and its effects on fish inflammatory responses, toward the optimization of fish performance under sub-optimal farming conditions.

His work at Deakin has also involved substantial collaboration with industry partners, like Ridley AquaFeed - Australia's largest provider of high performance animal nutrition solutions. This partnership has aimed to improve the quality of food available to fish in commercial farms, while reducing impact on the marine world.

With aquaculture facing many environmental hurdles, including dwindling fish stocks - due to overfishing, climate change and increased environmental pressures - Dr Norambuena said that an important goal of his new role will be to help in the development of more sustainable diets for farmed fish, reducing ingredients taken from the ocean and helping the industry to reduce its environmental impact.

While he has mixed feelings about leaving Deakin, Dr Norambuena is excited about returning to Chile. At BioMar he will have the opportunity to co-ordinate research activities in Chile and Costa Rica and collaborate with colleagues in countries such as Spain, Scotland, Greece, Norway and Denmark, with a particular focus on developing new food products for the South American aquaculture industry.