Hong Kong Oyster Hatchery and Innovation Research Unit (HKO-HIRU)
About Us
Our interdisciplinary collaborative team is primarily interested in applied marine research topics such as multiple stressors in coastal ecosystems, oyster aquaculture, food quality, and biomineralization. Our core research focus is on the identification of adaptive mechanisms in commercially important edible oysters that facilitate tolerance to novel climate change stressors in coastal oceans such as ocean acidification, warming and freshening. Recently we are specifically interested in looking at the transgenerational inheritance of stress tolerance mechanisms and rapid selection of tolerant genotypes for aquaculture using big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence. Importantly, we are using our research knowledge to build powerful new tools that help local growers and government authorities to make more economically sustainable oyster aquaculture policy decisions through various knowledge exchange projects. Last but not least, we have designed undergraduate curriculum to disseminate our research knowledge and practical experience to students using variety of experiential learning tools.
HKU Hatchery supplies Quality Oysters to Farmers
Hong Kong’s 700-year-old oyster industry has faced many challenges, from red tides, heavy metal pollution and acidification to outdated growing methods, lack of new, young farmers and an irregular supply of poor-quality seeds. The local growers need a seed that is resilient to disease, and that can grow faster. At the heart of Prof. Rajan’s plan is a hatchery inside the university’s main campus that can produce six million seeds annually from a sub-strain of the Hong Kong Oyster that he has named the HKU strain.