The field of pest management is ever-evolving. As many different classes of insecticides have been used repeatedly over the years to control dipteran pests, field populations of the targeted species have developed resistance, and consequently have reduced the efficacy of those insecticides and repellents. For this reason, researchers have been tasked with developing novel molecules that can serve as new “tools” in the insect management “toolbox”. I believe one of these new “tools” could be found by examining the world of naturally occurring molecules and using them to create biorational products, which are compounds based off of natural products that have been modified These compounds have proven to be quite effective at both repelling wild-type and pyrethroid-resistant mosquitoes and killing pestiferous insects such as cockroaches, flies, and mosquitoes. This research has demonstrated that these biorational products can be developed into products that could be used as major components of vector and nuisance arthropod management strategies.

To kill or to repel, that is the question: An exploration of biorational products and their potential uses

ACS Fall 2021

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.