Modern biotechnology against insect pests and disease vectors
VONTAS1,2
1Laboratory of Pesticide Science, Faculty of Crop Science, Agricultural University of Athens, Greece
2Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Foundation for Research and Technology (IMBB-FORTH), Heraklion Crete
Insects pose tremendous threats to humans in two main areas. Firstly, insect borne diseases, such as malaria and dengue fever, are spread by insect vectors and cause severe global health problems. Secondly, the sustainability of agricultural output, which needs to nearly double in the next 30-40 years to maintain food security and meet predicted population growth, is seriously threatened by insects and mites that devastate crop production. Both the prevention of vector borne disease and the protection of agricultural production are best achieved by controlling the insect population, which largely relies on the use of insecticides. However, the need for non-chemical methods to replace or integrate with insecticides for tackling insect pests is widely acknowledged.
Over the last years, there has been an impressive development of biotechnology – based insect control tools, such as microbial toxins (via transgenic plants or sprayable formats) and more recently dsRNA, “green-chemistry” biopesticides (metabolites, biostimulants etc), Wolbachia symbionts and insect transgenic technologies (RIDL, HEG – Gene Drive technologies).
An overview of current advents of modern biotechnology applications against insect pests and disease vectors will be presented, including technical introduction, stage of development and roll out, strengths and weaknesses, regulatory considerations, and operational constraints. Conditions where these alternative vector control methods/tools could offer greatest value will be discussed.