SBIR-STTR Award

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project is the development of safe and effective, toxin-free biocontrol of insects and other invasive organisms. Mosquitoes and other insects cost upwards of $10 B/year to the world economy due to their impact on human health and revenue losses to agriculture. Current control measures available are neither effective, environmentally friendly, scalable for widespread application, nor cost effective to implement. This project aims to address the above deficiencies. The goal is to develop insect control methods that are effective, have minimal environmental impact and are cost effective to implement and hence attractive to commercialization. This SBIR Phase I project proposes to develop a genetically modified sterile male accelerated release technique (SMART) for Aedes aegypti mosquito control. The innovative development of SMART mosquitoes solves several issues in mosquito control, including: sorting of males and females, transportation of adult males, laborious release processes, and non-scalable operation. The SMART approach requires eggs that can be produced at a centralized facility, stored at room temperature until needed, and inexpensively shipped at room temperature in a small container. Customers need only add water with supplied nutrients to hatch the eggs, from which only males emerge that amplify male sterility by producing sterile males with each reproduction cycle. The scope of the research proposal is limited to creating synthetic genetic incompatibility in mosquitoes by targeting germline male sterility. The key technical objectives are to: 1) optimize components of programmable transcriptional activators in mosquitoes and 2) engineer synthetic genetic incompatibility into germline of Ae. aegypti. The anticipated outcome of this project will be state-of-the-art SMART mosquitos that are effective at biocontrol that is scalable and economical to implement. 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.

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase II project will be to improve insect control with minimal chemical impact. Due to their impact on human health and losses to agriculture, insects pose threats upwards of $10 billion/year to the world economy. Current methods of insect control using chemical insecticides are somewhat effective but pose a grave threat to the environment. The company is developing a genetic-based insect control technology. This approach can be very effective, have minimal environmental impact and be cost effective to implement. The technology is broadly applicable to any sexually reproducing organism, which could enable applications beyond the first intended target of spotted wing drosophila. Likely future applications include control of insects important for public health, such as mosquitoes or ticks, other agricultural pests, and invasive species. The proposed project is designed to use genetics to solve issues posed by chemical insecticides and issues associated with broad adoption of sterile insect techniques: (i) sorting of male only insects, (ii) laborious release processes and (iii) non-scalable operation. The objective of this project is to create a prototype and verify its ability to control the initial target insect, spotted wing drosophila. The project will also investigate the robustness of the developed genetic system for commercial production. This research project will expand scientific knowledge of insect transgenesis and their use for biocontrol.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.