SILVEC BIOLOGICS INC — Department of Agriculture SBIR Phase II: 8.2

Description

Trees vines and bushes are plagued by pathogens causing over $100B in annual damage.Fungi are of particular concern causing 85% of pathogen-related crop losses. For many fungi likeBotrytis cinerea there are no varieties with natural resistance in its host range. As B. cinerea isestimated to cause over $10B in annual crop losses there is a strong driver for effective controlsolutions especially ones more environmentally friendly than conventional chemical fungicides.In phase I Silvec demonstrated that its proprietary technology can be used to defeat fungi ina model plant using its novel vector to deliver targeted small interfering RNAs that were able tocontrol fugus spread as compared to controls. For phase II Silvec will scale up this process toachieve a proof-of-concept in several commercial plants against several of the most damaging fungiThe specific objectives for this pahse are to: (1) demonstrate that its vector can control thepreharvest and postharvest diseases in commercial crops such as grapevine caused by B. cinereaand (2) replicate the process for additional fungi including U. necator. If successful the resultscould be transformative for US agriculture and save growers billions of dollars per year fromreduced fungicides and increased yields.