SBIR Phase I: Development of a Novel Antibiotic-Alternative Treatment for a Devastating Honey Bee Disease

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project is the development of potentially the first FDA-approved phage therapeutic, non-antibiotic remedy specifically designed for honeybees. This treatment has the potential to become the global gold standard for treating American Foulbrood, a devastating honey bee disease caused by the bacteria Paenibacillus larvae, which threatens 2.7 million beehives in the United States and 92.5 million beehives worldwide. The American foulbrood treatment market opportunity is $500 M, and this technology promises a significant reduction of current unprecedented mortality rates of honeybees, curtailment of antibiotics being used in beehives, which perpetuates antibiotic resistance in the environment, and support for organic agricultural production. This SBIR Phase I project proposes to expand the collection of Paenibacillus larvae bacterial strains for novel phage therapy development, enlarge the library of P. larvae bacteriophages from which an optimized treatment can be created, and test against each other to determine the optimal therapeutic phage combination. The expansion of the P. larvae strain and phages collection is critical because of the high specificity phages have for their hosts. Samples of P. larvae and phage will be collected from the entire United States. These greatly expanded phage and bacteria collections will help to ensure that treatments will be developed to effectively treat any American foulbrood infection.