Pheronym Receives NSF Grant to Help Commercialize Eco-Friendly Pest Control Product
Nematodes are loaded into sample tubes for Pheronym's investigation. The project seeks to test the effects of microgravity on the movement and infection behavior of beneficial nematodes, which are used to control agricultural insect pests.
Media Credit: Fatma Kaplan
Biotech company Pheronym recently received a National Science Foundation grant to help the company bring its nematode pheromone pest control product to market. In December 2019, Pheronym sent nematodes (microscopic roundworms) to the International Space Station (ISSInternational Space Station) U.S. National Laboratory as part of an investigation focused on environmentally friendly agricultural pest control.
Certain types of nematodes contain bacteria in their gut that kill insects that are harmful to crops. Pheromones produced by the nematodes are what signal the nematodes to disperse and find new insects to infect. Pheronym developed technology that uses pheromones to control nematodes to optimize their use as agricultural pest control.
Pheronym’s ISS National Lab investigation, done in collaboration with the United States Department of Agriculture, sought to study nematodes in microgravityThe condition of perceived weightlessness created when an object is in free fall, for example when an object is in orbital motion. Microgravity alters many observable phenomena within the physical and life sciences, allowing scientists to study things in ways not possible on Earth. The International Space Station provides access to a persistent microgravity environment. to uncover new pheromone production mechanisms and other insights that could help improve Pheronym’s pest control product formulation. Learn more in the ISS360 article “On the Hunt: Studying Insect-Killing Worms in Space.”