Last month, Dr. Arun Dhar moved to Tucson to begin his duties as an Associate Professor in the School of Animal and Comparative Biomedical Sciences and as Director of the Aquaculture Pathology Laboratory.
The Arizona Aquaculture Pathology lab serves as the OIE Reference lab for crustacean diseases and was developed and led by Dr. Donald Lightner for many years before his recent retirement. As Director, Dr. Dhar leads a world class research and development team with expertise in diagnostics, treatment and biosecurity against virtually all classes of pathogens and parasites of shrimp and other crustaceans. The lab personnel are active with competitive research grants, assisting the global aquaculture industry as a service lab, collaborative research projects with national and international organizations, as the OIE reference lab, and as a teaching center. The lab team provides the summer shrimp pathology short course in Tucson, which has been attended by virtually every shrimp pathologist in the world, and a plethora of short courses held on-site and in all the active shrimp farming regions of the world. As a research center, the lab also hosts visiting scientists and trains graduate and undergrad students.
Dr. Dhar earned his PhD from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India and conducted post-doctoral research in Agriculture Canada, Fredericton, New Brunswick, and Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine, Massachusetts. Dr Dhar has worked in start-up as well as in multinational biotech companies in California and Maryland. He has spent much of his professional career working on developing diagnostics, oral vaccines and therapies, and genetic markers for viral disease resistance in fish and shellfish. Over the years while working in biotech companies, Dr. Dhar has also been actively involved in teaching and mentoring graduate students at several colleges and universities including MIT, University of Maryland-Baltimore County, Towson University and Hood College. He also teaches in the AQUAVET® Program at Cornell University.
