SBIR Phase II: Bioparticle delivery of dsRNA: A novel pest management solution for control of fall armyworm

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will be the development of a platform for delivering targeted, safe, and effective biological pesticides to the growing population, yet the combined effects of globalization, monoculture, and climate change have increased the threat of insect pests and phytopathogens. While synthetic pesticides offer a relatively effective means of crop protection, there are many detrimental health effects from pesticide use and several billion dollars worth of crops are lost each year due to damage caused by pests that have developed resistance to chemical pesticides. Widespread adoption of an alternative to synthetic pesticides may drastically reduce the indirect economic costs of pesticide use, estimated in one study at $10 billion in environmental and societal costs in the United States each year. This project seeks to develop the first RNAi-based biocide for control of the fall armyworm, an economically devastating invasive pest that threatens the global food supply and that is developing resistance to the main form of genetically modified corn in the Americas. Candidate double stranded ribonucleic acids will be designed and tested, and a panel of fall armyworm biocide prototypes will be analyzed with feeding assays to identify the five best performing prototypes. These five prototypes will then be tested in the greenhouse for their ability to reduce damage in corn plants caused by seeded fall armyworm infestations. The top two prototypes identified via greenhouse testing will then advance to small-plot field testing on both inoculated and naturally occurring infestations in corn. Three different application formulations will be field-tested per prototype and the results will be compared to non-treated plants and three commonly used insecticides. This work will be performed in collaboration with the University of Tennessee. Successful completion of Phase II will demonstrate the ability of this novel biocide to control fall army worms in the field, inform application approach, and identify one or two final candidates for further development and progression to large scale field testing. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.