Lund University, Sweden
“From the lab bench to the market: towards biotechnological production of moth pheromones“
Abstract
Pheromones have become an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional insecticides for pest control. Most current pheromone-based pest control products target lepidopteran pests of high-value crops, as today’s manufacturing processes cannot yet produce pheromones at low enough costs to enable their use for
lower-value crops, especially commodity crops. I will share with you our work towards cost-effective biotechnological production of moth pheromones in yeast and plant factories opening up for pheromone-based control of major row crop pest.
References
Wang HL, Ding BJ, Dai JQ, Nazarenus TJ, Borges R, Mafra-Neto A, Cahoon EB, Hofvander P, Stymne S, Löfstedt C. 2022. Insect pest management with sex pheromone precursors from engineered oilseed plants. Nat Sustain 5:981–990.
Holkenbrink C, Ding BJ, Wang HL, Dam MI, Petkevicius K, Rueksomtawin Kildegaard K, Wennig L., Sinkwitz C, Lorántfy B., Koutsoumpeli E., França L, Pires M, Bernard C, Urrutia W, Mafra-Neto A, Sommer Ferreira B, Raptopoulos D, Konstantopoulou M, Löfstedt C, Borodina I. 2020. Production of moth sex pheromones for pest control by yeast fermentation. Metab Eng 62:312–321.
Short Bio
Christer Löfstedt is Professor in Ecology at Lund University since 1998. Head of the Department of Biology at Lund University 2010–2018, fellow of The Royal Physiographic Society of Lund and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. His research interests include all aspects of insect chemical communication with a focus on the evolutionary and applied aspects of pheromone communication in moths.
If anyone is interested in meeting with the speaker, please contact Diego Orzaez (dorzaez@ibmcp.upv.es).
