The $650,000 federal Project Grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (CFDA 10.212 - Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program) supports Lepidext, Inc., a for-profit small business, in developing a commercially viable production system for their InsterushZ product. InsterushZ is a sexually transmitted virus that sterilizes adult corn earworm moths, a major pest of food and fiber crops. The grant aims to optimize manual injection methods, implement mass production of the cannibalistic insects, and improve shipment logistics to enable efficient release of the sterilized moths across large agricultural acreages. The anticipated outcomes include a scalable system to produce and distribute the biopesticide, with a focus on addressing significant corn earworm pressure in the $12 billion seed corn production and development industry.
Generated 1/28/25, 9:53 AM