(1) Molecular epidemiology and disease surveillance for mariculture. This topic includes development of the rapid methods and high-throughput system for disease diagnostic technology for maricultural animal diseases, research on the epidemiology of diseases in aquatic organisms, analysis on the emerging trends by molecular variations and diversity of important pathogens, and the study on the key molecular epidemiological characteristics in marine aquaculture pathogens.

(2) Biosecurity principles and disease control systems. This topic includes research on the risk factors of pathogen spread and disease outbreak in aquaculture systems, investigation on the ecological relationship between disease prevalence and the environment, host and pathogen, development of aquaculture biosecurity plan, biosecurity inspection protocols, and biosecurity management systems.

(3) The mechanism of the pathogens and hosts interaction. This topic includes the works on the host recognition mechanism of pathogens, the molecular basis of the interaction between pathogens and hosts, and changes in gene expression and protein activity in marine organisms in response to infection, identification and mapping of genes involved in immune response and disease resistance, and application of this knowledge in the development of disease management strategies and prevention tools.

(4) Fish vaccines and biological drugs. This topic includes the exploration of technologies related to vaccine development, and the other blocking techniques to control agriculture disease; the development of technologies related to endogenous gene expression and the improvement of foreign gene expression of microbe in mariculture, and the technologies for the introduction of disease resistance genes and vaccines related to mariculture

(5) Preservation and utilization for microbial resources associated with mariculture. This topic includes isolation, identification and preservation of microbial resources associated with mariculture, screening of specific functions, such as disease resistance, vaccine intake, inorganic nitrogen assimilation, and feed fermentation, etc., and development of their application technologies in aquaculture industry.