Location: Invasive Insect Biocontrol & Behavior Laboratory
Project Number: 8042-22000-315-031-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Aug 30, 2024
End Date: Sep 30, 2026
Objective:
Objective is to undertake three key research collaborations involving Chemistry, natural products, and training graduate and undergraduate students to address three research needs: (1) Improved lures for invasive pests; (2) identify natural products with efficacy against ticks; and (3) identify derivatives of known insect pest field attractants that may be cheaper and equally effective .
Identify and evaluate the most effective attractive components by laboratory bioassays. Isolate potential attractive components needed from the natural sources when they are not commercially available- in order to identify more efficient attractants for insect pests, for example Emerald Ash borer, than commercially available lures.
Approach:
To address objective 1, scientists will Identify and evaluate the most effective attractive components for pest insect(s) by laboratory bioassays. They will isolate potential attractive components needed from the natural sources when they are not commercially available- in order to identify more efficient attractants for insect pests, for example Emerald Ash borer, than commercially available lures. Specifically, the headspace will be collected from infested ash trees. Volatile components will be analyzed and identified by GC-MS. The potential attractive components, e.g., sesquiterpenes, will be identified from different essential oils. These potential sesquiterpenes will be isolated and purified by different extraction and purification methods, e.g., distillation, filtration, solvent partitioning, adsorption, or column chromatography to obtain fractions enriched in the potential sesquiterpenes compounds. After obtaining the relative pure sesquiterpenes needed, the volatile compounds will be formulated and tested in the field to evaluate the attractive efficacy.
To address objective 2, extracts and fractions from herbal remedies will be identified and prepared to be sent to IIBBL Beltsville MD for screening against ticks in laboratory bioassays in order to find novel agents to lower tick-borne diseases of humans.
To address objective 3, A scalable synthetic scheme will be established for vittatalactone analogs with fewer chirality centers.
