By MICHELE F. MIHALJEVICH

Indiana Correspondent

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) official is defending the agency’s research into the potential use of insects to help stave off the effects of disease, flood and drought on crops.

The Insect Allies program would develop a system using naturally occurring plant viruses to deliver genes that confer new traits to mature crops, according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The viruses would be delivered by insects. The goal would be to protect crops within the same growing season as a threat may occur.

DARPA is an agency within the DOD. Insect Allies was introduced in November 2016 with a four-year timeline. The aim of program is to protect the U.S. crop system, said Blake Bextine, DARPA program manager for Insect Allies.

“National security can be quickly jeopardized by naturally occurring threats to the crop system, including pathogens, drought, flooding and frost, but especially by threats introduced by state or non-state actors,” he explained.

The application of targeted therapies to mature plants “would provide an urgently needed alternative to pesticides, selective breeding, slash-and-burn clearing and quarantine, which are often ineffective against rapidly emerging threats and are not suited to securing mature plants.”

The program’s three technical areas – viral manipulation, insect vector optimization and selective gene therapy in mature plants – support the goal of rapidly modifying plant traits without the need for extensive infrastructure, Bextine noted.

DARPA is emphasizing biosafety and biosecurity in research related to the program, he said. The work is done inside closed laboratories, greenhouses or other secured facilities, Bextine pointed out.

In an article in the Oct. 5 issue of the journal Science, several independent scientists criticized the program, saying it may be perceived as an effort to develop biological agents for hostile purposes and their means of delivery. If true, it would be a breach of the Biological Weapons Convention, they said.

The program seeks to find ways to achieve genetic engineering through horizontal transfer rather than through vertical inheritance, the scientists said. Modified chromosomes must be vertically inherited from one generation to the next.

The scientists say the knowledge gained from the program appears to be limited in its capacity to enhance U.S. agriculture, or respond to either long- or short-term national emergencies. There has also been a lack of discussion about the major practical and regulatory impediments toward realizing the projected agricultural benefits, they added.

In response, Bextine said from the beginning of the project, DARPA has invited U.S. regulatory agencies to offer perspectives and learn about the work.

“Technologies dealing with food security and gene editing certainly do have a higher bar than most for transparency, research ethics and regulatory engagement, and I believe Insect Allies meets that raised standard,” he said.

“The researchers working with DARPA are free to publish their results, encouraged to discuss their efforts and coordinate with regulatory agencies to facilitate the transition of their technologies from laboratory demonstrations to – someday in the future – powerful new tools that can bolster the toolkit for responding to fast-moving or unanticipated threats to the global food supply.”

Bextine said DARPA made the move into agriculture because the stability of the nation’s domestic agricultural sector represents a critical but often under-appreciated element of national security. Also, DARPA has “a unique charter to pursue revolutionary and technologically high-risk projects that go well beyond the incremental advances typical of many other research and development organizations.”

Several universities, including The Ohio State University, are participating in research related to the program. OSU, the lead institution for the Team Maize Hopper project, began its work in July.

“The research at Ohio State has a goal of developing viruses and their insect vectors as tools for protecting maize in targeted and specific ways to demonstrate measurable traits like disease and drought resistance,” noted a spokesperson for the university’s College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

“We expect that the basic research done on this project will enhance our understanding of molecular interactions among plants, viruses and insects, and will have significant impact toward advances in molecular breeding of maize and control of virus diseases and insect pests in crops.”