• About
  • Partnerships
  • Challenges
  • Awards
  • Grant Opportunities
  • News

Taking Out the Bodyguards: A New Solution to Agricultural Disease

David Hughes of the Pennsylvania State University in the U.S. will produce plants expressing RNAi designed to sterilize ant queens. The strategy will use aphids to deliver the RNAi to the ants: the phloem-sucking aphids take up the RNAi and pass it along to ants in their honeydew. The goal is to reduce populations of ants that act as bodyguards to the aphids, thereby increasing aphid mortality.

More information about Protect Crop Plants from Biotic Stresses from Field to Market (Round 8)

Great ideas come from everywhere.

Sign up for email updates of the latest grant opportunities and awards.

View the Grand Challenges partnership network

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is part of the Grand Challenges partnership network. Visit www.grandchallenges.org to view the map of awarded grants across this network and grant opportunities from partners.