Location: Livestock Arthropod Pest Research Unit
Project Number: 3094-32000-041-013-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Apr 5, 2023
End Date: Apr 4, 2026
Objective:
Develop putative genetic sexing lines in screwworms and rearing methods to optimize the production capacity, and the capacity for large cost reductions, for the Program to Eradicate Screwworms along the barrier zone at the Panama-Columbia border.
Approach:
New transgenic strains will be evaluated for quality under laboratory conditions. Modified rearing parameters, such as diet formula or larval rearing temperature, to optimize screwworm performance will be evaluated using existing transgenic strains with high performance. Then, in collaboration with Technical Direction, novel transgenic strains or rearing conditions, such as diet formulation, temperature to maintain the larval media (both for flies intended for sterile, mass release and those for colony replacement), evaluation of the potential to develop a 'filter rearing' system, and consideration of requirements for handling waste (particularly larval diet containing doxycycline), will be optimized to mass-rearing scale.
