New case study: cardiac health monitoring for salmon aquaculture

Identifying fish cardiac disease biomarkers and developing a test for early diagnosis of CMS in salmon

Cardiomyopathy Syndrome (CMS) is a viral heart disease that causes sudden death in apparently healthy salmon. The current diagnosis of CMS is based on clinical signs and lab tests that require lethal sampling, making early detection difficult. No vaccines or treatments are available against CMS, so identifying the disease early is critical for farmers to take timely action and reduce losses.

This project explored whether cardiac biomarkers - proteins released into the blood during heart damage - could provide a non-lethal, cost-effective way to detect CMS in its early or subclinical stages. Researchers focused on troponin, a key biomarker widely used in human medicine, and developed salmon-specific assays to measure it.

With a total value of £283k, the project partners were Cooke Aquaculture UK, University of Edinburgh, Life Diagnostics Ltd, Benchmark Genetics and the Moredun Research Institute, supported by SAIC.

The project team created prototype serological tests using salmon-specific antibodies, which showed promise for identifying CMS before clinical signs appear. These tools could form part of an integrated ‘cardiac health toolkit’ for salmon, helping farmers monitor heart health and respond proactively. The approach may also be adapted for other cardiac diseases, such as pancreas disease (PD) and heart and skeletal muscle inflammation (HSMI).

By enabling earlier diagnosis and better population-level assessment, this research represents a major step toward improving fish welfare and reducing economic losses. It also highlights the potential of veterinary biomarker technology to transform aquaculture health management.

The full title of this project is ‘Assessing the use of cardiac biomarkers for early diagnostic of cardiomyopathy syndrome’.

The results from this project formed the basis of a follow-on, SAIC-funded project, 'Use of serum biomarkers for early differential diagnostics of cardiomyopathies of Atlantic salmon: field and challenge assessment'.

Read the full case study