By Stephanie Schupska
University of
Georgia
Insects eat one-third of all food produced worldwide before it
ever reaches the dinner table, according to University of
Georgia expert Mike Adang.
Since his undergraduate days at
Indiana University, the entomology professor has been
interested in ways to control insects besides using
pesticides. Through his research at UGA’s College of
Agricultural and
Environmental Sciences, he’s found a better, natural way to
fight pests.
Adang discovered BtBooster through a series of biopesticide
experiments. By adding a bit of an insect protein to a small
piece of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) protein, he learned that
it “took less Bt to kill the insects.”
In this case, the
insects were hornworms, and originally, Adang expected the
experiment to leave them ready and waiting to devour more
plants. Instead, it left them dead.
Bt is a biopesticide that produces proteins toxic to many
insect species. “It’s a natural bacterium,” Adang said. “It
attacks the insect’s gut, making the insect sick.”
However, some insects are resistant to Bt. And that’s where
Adang’s surprise comes into play. He and colleagues Gang Hua
and John Chen had been hoping to learn how Bt kills insects by
feeding them part of an insect protein, the Bt receptor.
Instead, they found a way to supercharge Bt and kill the
insects faster and with less biopesticide.
And BtBooster was born.
“We were very pleased to see something come from our basic
research,” Adang said. “It’s a long way from the lab to making
something useful.”
Bt proteins have changed the way crop plants are protected
against insects. The technology can be built into a plant like
cotton or corn and has been available to farmers since 1996.
Vegetables and trees can be protected from insect damage by
being sprayed with a biopesticide made from Bt.
Bt provides an alternative to chemical ways of dealing with
pests, especially where chemicals could harm humans. Bt doesn’t
hurt people. For that reason, foresters can spray whole stands
of tree with Bt to fight gypsy moths, which are among North
America’s most devastating forest pests.
Organic farmers can use Bt and still be considered organic
because biopesticides come from living organisms. They
can control the insects on their crops without having to worry
about chemical residues.
Though Bt crops are becoming more common, chemicals are still a
common way of controlling insects. “Chemical pesticides are
still safe,” Adang said. “But over the years, people have
started to worry more about problems such as groundwater
contamination and other issues like that.”
Through Bt, and now with BtBooster, the potential impact is
great as more producers use crops that have been retrofitted
with the Bt protein.
“Using BtBooster will allow Bt crops and Bt biopesticides to
work better,” Adang said, “having a positive environmental
impact and reducing chemical insecticide use.”
Through a National Institutes of Health grant, UGA and his gene
design and discovery company InsectiGen, Adang is now studying
how Bt kills mosquitoes. Using a U.S. Department of Agriculture
National Research Initiative grant, he’s specifically looking
at how insects become resistant to Bt in cotton.
He’s digging
deeper into the workings of BtBooster, too, trying to figure
out how it works and making improvements to optimize it.
Through UGA’s Georgia BioBusiness Center, Adang formed
InsectiGen in 2003 with Clifton Baile, a CAES professor of
animal science. Its focus is on discovering and engineering
proteins for insect control.
Because of his discovery of BtBooster, he was presented the UGA
Inventor’s Award on March 29. He has also filed for a patent
license to continue his quest of developing a farm-production
product for pest control.
