Each year, farmers around the world spend $80 billion on pesticides for their crops. Those pesticides impact not only harmful insects but also bees and beneficial bacteria in the soil. They can also run off into waterways and harm the environment. And, they are increasingly being linked to human diseases like Parkinson's and cancer. Amid growing awareness of those problems, pesticides made from living microbes are gaining popularity. Unfortunately, such microbial pesticides are often less effective, forcing farmers to choose between potential environmental damage and higher crop yields. Now, Robigo is equipping naturally occurring microbes with more potent pest-fighting capabilities. The company, which was co-founded by Andee Wallace PhD '20, uses technologies more commonly associated with medical applications, like RNA interference and CRISPR, to engineer self-replicating microbes that target plant pathogens more precisely than chemical pesticides and more effectively than other...
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