Inside the Data: Capturing the True Dynamics of Disease to Deliver Data
When developing a new product for our market, success depends on how accurately your studies reflect the real conditions fish experience on the farm. Data quality must be the foundation of every confident decision. Our cohabitation models, study designs that replicate natural infection process, generate data that is both reliable and directly relevant to real-world performance.
Traditional disease challenge models often rely on methods that ensure exposure such as direct injection or immersion, but these models can oversimplify the complex dynamics of disease transmission in production environments. Cohabitation models are uniquely suited to connect controlled science and real-world complexity.
Onda’s cohabitation models reproduce infection as it truly occurs in aquaculture:
Trojans (shedders) are deliberately exposed to the pathogen.
Cohabitants share the same water, acquiring infection naturally over time.
This setup captures the authentic course of infection, including transmission rate, variable exposure levels, and the influence of environmental factors. The result is a dataset that mirrors how a disease behaves in a farm population, not just in a lab tank. For clients, this translates to performance data that predicts field efficacy rather than just laboratory success.
Because the infection process is not artificially synchronized, these models uncover differences in product performance that other methods can miss. That nuance gives developers the confidence to fine-tune dosing, administration timing, or formulation before products reach commercial trials.
For example, a vaccine that shows 90% protection under direct-challenge conditions might perform differently when natural exposure rates, environmental stressors, and fish-to-fish variability come into play. Onda’s models capture those subtleties, allowing clients to anticipate field performance with greater confidence, making it a cost-effective method in product development because it is grounded in natural infection spread mechanism. That means fewer surprises during deployment and stronger, more defensible claims when engaging with regulators, partners, or producers.
Innovation in aquaculture depends on trustworthy data. Cohabitation models ensure that your investment in research translates into knowledge that holds true beyond the tank, guiding real-world applications, improving product validation, and supporting the responsible advancement of fish health solutions.
At Onda, our goal is simple: to make sure the data you depend on reflects the world you serve.