Agriculture

Jeremy Thompson and colleagues at Cornell University in the U.S. are working to uncover genetic targets in plants that interact with specific structures buried within the RNA of viral genomes to allow viruses to replicate and cause disease in food crops. Identifying these host molecules and mechanisms can provide the basis for modifications in plant breeding strategies to combat plant viruses in important crop plants.

Agenor Mafra-Neto and Leandro Mafra of ISCA Technologies, Inc. in the U.S., working with Eamonn Keogh of the University of California, Riverside, seek to build ultra-cheap laser bug sensors that accurately count and identify flying insect pests from a distance. Real-time data would allow for effective and economic pest management without reliance on scarce specialists, increasing local crop production and reducing hunger-related health issues.

James Rogers of aPEEL Technology in the U.S. is developing a molecular camouflage that uses plant extracts to create an edible, ultrathin barrier that can be applied to harvested crops to extend their shelf-life without refrigeration and protect them from being eaten by pests. In Phase I, they discovered that highly cross-linked cutin-like polyesters made the best coating material for plants.

Wolf Frommer of the Carnegie Institution for Science in the U.S., along with Bing Yang of Iowa State University and Frank White of Kansas State University will modify rice to be stably resistant to all strains of a major rice pathogen. Rice bacterial blight can cause up to 60% loss of yield in Asia and there are currently no effective ways to stop it. These bacteria steal sugar from the rice plants to fuel their own growth. They will block this fundamental mechanism by selectively modifying the DNA sequence of the rice using their TALEN technology.

Shunyuan Xiao of the University of Maryland in the U.S. proposes to engineer a genetic system that enables targeted delivery and induced release of antimicrobial proteins across the extrahaustorial membrane, which is the appendage used by pathogens to penetrate host plant cells. This technology could be used to create broad-spectrum resistance against haustorium-forming pathogens in crop plants.

Ravi Durvasula of the Biomedical Research Institute of New Mexico in the U.S. is developing biopolymers to encapsulate and protect fungal biopesticides, which are used to kill desert locusts that destroy crops in Africa. The polymer will not only shield the biopesticides from harsh environmental conditions such as UV radiation and heat but will also be formulated to release its contents upon contact with the insect.

Savithramma Dinesh-Kumar of the University of California, Davis, along with David Segal of the University of California, Davis and Vincent Fondong of Delaware State University in the U.S., seek to design custom TALE nucleases that target and cleave critical regions of DNA from cassava-infecting geminiviruses (CMGs) to completely inactivate the viruses. CMGs are a major threat to cassava production in Africa, and targeted nucleases could be used to engineer CMG resistance into staple African cassava varieties to promote regional food security.

Souroush Parsa of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Colombia, along with Fernando E. Vega of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, will research whether fungi that kill insect pests can become endophytic in crop seeds, meaning the fungi can live within resulting plants without harming them. This would allow smallholder farmers to inoculate crop seeds using much smaller quantities of the fungal pathogens than when used in sprays over entire fields, providing a cheaper and more durable biological control method.

Monica Schmidt of the University of Arizona and Dilip Shah of the Danforth Center in the U.S. will work to develop a fungal resistant, aflatoxin-free transgenic groundnut by simultaneously suppressing fungal growth and inhibiting the fungus' ability to biosynthesize the mycotoxin compound. This may eliminate carcinogenic mycotoxin contamination making groundnuts safe for consumption.

Marc Ghislain of the International Potato Center in Peru proposes to identify key genes in African sweetpotato weevils that can be used as targets for RNA interference strategies. Engineering gene silencing approaches could confer pest resistance in food crops like the sweetpotato.