System and method for oral vaccination of animal populations via transgenic insects

Abstract

One variation of a method includes: identifying a target pathogen associated with disease in a target aquatic species; accessing a vaccine antigen sequence encoding a target antigen for the target pathogen, the target antigen configured to trigger a target immune response in the target aquatic species responsive to exposure to the target pathogen; generating a transgenic Drosophila strain expressing the target antigen by inserting the vaccine antigen sequence into a genome of a base Drosophila species; cultivating a population of the transgenic Drosophila strain to produce an amount of Drosophila biomass comprising the target antigen; processing the amount of Drosophila biomass into a vaccine feed configured for oral administration to a population of the target aquatic species; and administering the vaccine feed to the population of the target aquatic species via oral delivery to vaccinate the population of the target aquatic species against the target pathogen.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.