2/06/2021

Institutional changes



As of February 1st, 2021 Szent István University no longer exists. Following a merger of SZIU with the University of Kaposvár, the Georgikon Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Pannonia and the Károly Róbert Campus of Eszterházy University on August 1st, 2020, a new merger took place last Monday when the National Agricultural Research and Innovation Centre (NAIK) was integrated into the university structure. 

The new university is called Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences (Magyar Agrár- és Élettudományi Egyetem – MATE). The university has five campuses: Buda (Budapest), Szent István (Gödöllő), Georgikon (Keszthely), Kaposvár (Kaposvár) and Károly Róbert (Gyöngyös) and instead of faculties, it is divided into 21 institutes. 

Our team belongs to the Institute of Aquaculture and Environmental Safety, one of the largest institutes of the new university with approximately 150 employees and PhD students at 3 campuses. One of the constituent institutes of the former NAIK, the Research Institute for Fisheries and Aquaculture (HAKI) also belongs to our Institute now (renamed as a research center). The new Institute consists of 6 departments and one research center. Our team belongs to the Department of Aquaculture of which Ákos is the designated chair.

To know more about the new university, please visit this site: https://uni-mate.hu/hu 

Sampling in Lillafüred

 On January 27th 2021, we went to Lillafüred to sample the triploid rainbow trout that were transplanted with brown trout spermatogonia three years ago as well as tiger trout that were transplanted with rainbow trout spermatogonia as adults. The triploids have grown to an enormous size, some females were close to 5 kg in weight. Results of the transplantation will be verified by histology as well as using molecular markers. 

A triploid rainbow trout female transplanted with brown trout spermatogonia

Gyuri, the owner of the farm has also shown us the fish that were the result of the first successful transplantation of rainbow trout spermatogonia into tiger trout recipients. Sperm stripped from one of the tigers was used to fertilize rainbow trout eggs and as the photos show, the progeny are completely normal rainbow trout. Many of the males are already sexually mature and produced sperm that was used for regular fertilization.

A fish hatched from rainbow trout eggs fertilized with sperm stripped from a tiger trout recipient