Resistance free pesticides.
TLDR: We build next-generation pesticides from engineered insect virus-like particles. They target a single pest species, stay safe for humans, pollinators, and the environment, and can be reprogrammed over time as pests evolve resistance.
Pesticides underpin modern agriculture and food security, accounting for $80B in annual spend. Without effective pesticides, we can't grow enough food.
The Problem 🌱
Pests are developing resistance faster than new pesticides can be invented to replace the failing ones. At the same time, regulators are banning core active ingredients over environmental and human toxicity. Farmers are losing tools from both ends at once.
Our Solution 🪲
We build pesticides out of insect virus-like particles. We start with a virus that only infects insects and is harmless to humans. We strip out its genome so it can't infect or replicate, and we keep the empty protein shell as a delivery vehicle.
We engineer that shell with two parts:
- A targeting element that recognizes a single pest species (or a set of species). This is what keeps the product species-specific and invisible to humans, pollinators, and beneficial insects.
- A payload that kills the pest.
Both parts are swappable. Changing the targeting element will modify which pest it kills. Changing the payload will result in a new kill mechanism for the same pest, which is how we update the product when resistance appears.
Designing for true pollinator safety is hard, so we did the underlying science ourselves. We solved a cryo-EM structure of a key receptor in honey bees, which lets us deliberately engineer our targeting elements so they do not bind pollinators.
Why Us? 🧑🏽🔬
We are Zaky and Min, viral structural biology PhD candidates and lab mates at the University of Toronto, where we have worked together for the past 6 years studying how viruses interact with their hosts. We have published in Nature Microbiology and Nature Communications, and Min holds the world record for the highest-resolution structure of a coronavirus spike protein.
Traction 📈
We have signed our first grower LOI, have more in the pipeline, and produced our first set of viruses for testing. During the batch we also solved a cryo-EM structure of a honey-bee receptor that directly informs our pollinator-safe design.
Connect with us!
- Growers and producers: if you are fighting resistant pests or losing tools to bans, we would love to talk about your crops and target pests. Reach us at molagri.com
- Everyone else: intros to ag and crop-science operators, or anyone who has built regulated biological products, are always welcome.
