Pest control gets the CRISPR treatment

Tags: Ecology, Fruit fly, Pest management, Sterile insect technique (SIT)
Seydel, C., Nature Biotechnology, 2024.

In June 2024, the St. Louis–based pest control company Agragene released genetically modified fruit flies on berry farms in California and Oregon, moving the technology out of the laboratory and into contained field testing. The trial marked a milestone for a next-generation biocontrol technology called the precision-guided sterile insect technique, or pgSIT.

“The spotted wing drosophila (SWD) is the number 1 problem for any kind of strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, blackberry grower,” said Bryan Witherbee, president and CEO of Agragene. The flies have developed resistance to conventional chemical pesticides, and fruit growers suffer enormous economic losses due to the pest. “Growers are crying out for new tools,” Witherbee said.

Hope is on the horizon, not only for farmers battling SWD and other agricultural pests but also for public health agencies struggling to control disease vectors. Several companies, including Agragene, are bringing biological pest control into the CRISPR era with pgSIT and other molecular tools that can specifically target the pest without killing beneficial insects, polluting the water or blanketing communities with toxic airborne chemicals. San Diego–based Synvect is applying pgSIT to disease-causing mosquitoes. Meanwhile, Oxitec, which has already successfully commercialized its “Friendly” genetic modification platform in mosquitoes, is turning its attention to crop pests.