Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** for centuries, humans have tried to…

Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** for centuries, humans have tried to develop tools to prevent blood-sucking insects from biting and transferring vector-borne infectious diseases. Over a million of human lives could be saved annually by preventing such vector bites. Today the use of insect repellents has been the primary traditional defence practice against these threats. As of now, synthetic repellents such as deet or permethrin are preferred over common natural repellents due to their effectiveness and durability, despite reported health, and environmental warnings. Recently, scientists from the USDA agricultural research service (ARS) discovered that biobased medium-chain fatty acids derived from coconut oil have shown excellent repellent activity against a broad array of blood-sucking arthropods, including biting flies, ticks, bed bugs, and mosquitoes. For centuries coconut products were used by ancient maya to keep insects away; until now, households in central america, india, and fiji use coconut shells for same purpose. The ARS-USDA research shows that medium-chain fatty acids present in coconuts are even better repellents than deet and permethrin. With this project, insectapel, working with ARS, aims to develop textile coating systems for incorporating these biobased repellents into textile products. The approach is based on textile coating technology developed by the insectapel team in the USDA phase i. Also, the proposed research will exploit synthesis of active medium-chain repellents using abundant plant oils such as soybean oil and will result in the development of commercially viable insect-repelling textile technology. A significant fraction of synthetic repellents currently used in textiles can be potentially replaced with agriculturally derived alternatives. The proposed research will benefit US agriculture by driving additional demand for medium-chain triglycerides that can be derived from plant oils.