D3250: A medicinal chemistry approach to the fight against hemlock woolly adelgid: Selective pesticide development

The Hemlock Woolly Adelgid (HWA, Adelges tsugae) is an invasive insect causing widespread mortality of hemlock trees in Eastern North America. Current HWA control methods rely on the widespread application of broad-spectrum neonicotinoid insecticides. While these insecticides succeed in reducing HWA populations, they are problematic due to their high toxicity to native insect populations. The development of highly selective insecticides which are only toxic to a specific species or subgroup of insects is an underexplored area of research. We seek to bridge this gap by turning the modern medicinal chemist’s toolkit, which is regularly used to design highly selective human therapeutics, towards selective pesticide development. To this end, we utilize computational genomic and proteomic tools to analyze the HWA, probing known molecular targets for insecticides and investigating potential new targets. Concurrently, we leverage modern analytical techniques towards understanding the chemical composition of HWA and what makes it unique among other insects. Armed with this information, we plan to move into the design, synthesis, and testing of new, highly selective insecticides which may redefine the standard of care for infested hemlock trees and prevent the off-target mortality of native insects.