Tag: nanotechnology

Using nanotechnology to target crop-munching pests

Using nanotechnology to target crop-munching pests

A bane of farmers’ existence, it’s estimated that plant-eating pests are responsible for the loss of up to 40 per cent of pre-harvest yields globally. But a new generation of crop treatments that target only “bad” bugs could mean big gains for the Canadian agriculture sector, improving pest management tools in an industry that in 2024 generated over $142 billion. 

Dr. Justin Pahara and his team at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s (AAFC) Lethbridge Research and Development Centre are designing new screening methods to learn whether current crop treatments are effective. Their end goal, however, is to develop a method for using nanotechnology to deliver specific chemicals into pests based on their unique DNA – without harming helpful insects.

For example, through methods developed and tested at the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan, the researchers found that lygus bugs contain regions of enriched minerals pointing to certain proteins that could one day be targeted with tailored agents to prevent them from eating crops. The lygus bug is a common agriculture pest that feeds on many crops, including canola. Pahara and his team’s innovative methods are published in the Canadian Journal of Chemistry.

“We all need food, and if farmers cannot grow their products efficiently and make a living out of it, it’s a problem,” says Pahara. “We need new tools for pest management. Insects are becoming more tolerant to chemicals in the same way antibiotic resistance works in humans.”

Developing targeted pest treatments would also make “carpet bombing” insects with harmful pesticides a thing of the past.

“The ‘spray-and-pray’ approach ends up also killing beneficial bugs such as pollinators, and predatory insects like spiders, wasps, and beetles that help maintain a healthy ecosystem,” says Pahara.

The first step was to study how pesticides get into pests in the first place, how the nanomaterials get into their bodies and where the substances accumulate, information that will help design better solutions.

Pahara and his team used the BioXAS beamline at the CLS to create X-ray images of cutworms and lygus bugs, showing what chemicals were present in the insects and where.

Read more on CLS website

LAAAMP-Funded Team Makes a Journey of Miles and Nanometers

LAAAMP-Funded Team Makes a Journey of Miles and Nanometers

This is a story of miles and nanometers. Celline Awino Omondi and Miller Shatsala traveled from Kakamega, Kenya, to Berkeley, USA, through a grant from Lightsources for Africa, the Americas, Asia, Middle East, and Pacific (LAAAMP), a journey of over 9,400 miles. Their research interests, however, are best described with nanometers—very thin perovskite films to be used for solar energy.

At their home institution, Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, Omondi is a faculty member and Shatsala is a PhD student in the department of physics. Omondi’s interest in new materials began in graduate school. “I did a master’s in materials nanotechnology, and it was so interesting, I wanted to continue in materials science,” she said. Though her doctoral studies were in Germany, her research inspiration was closer to home. “In Africa, we have abundant solar radiation. So, we are looking for a way to tap into that solar radiation so that we can use it for our daily life.”

Omondi envisions many applications for photovoltaics. With the new materials under development, solar energy could be used in the future for everything from household electricity to vaccine storage in hospitals and irrigation on farms. New materials to harness solar energy would be life changing. “Most parts of Africa aren’t on the grid, and if they have electricity, it’s very expensive,” Omondi explained.

Similarly, Shatsala’s master’s thesis research focused on silicon solar cells. “Then I discovered that there are new materials coming up in solar energy whose efficiency was almost passing silicon, so that’s why I shifted to perovskites,” he said. 

To characterize the perovskites they’re studying, the two researchers came to the Advanced Light Source through a LAAAMP Faculty-Student (FAST) Teams grant. The program provides financial support for PhD students and their faculty advisors from Africa, the Caribbean, Mexico, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Pacific to spend two months in residence at a collaborative partner light source. With this training opportunity, scientists like Omondi and Shatsala will be able to take their newfound skills and knowledge back to a region that is still in the planning phases for its own synchrotron facility. One day in the future, the two researchers could be part of operating and using this facility—the African Light Source. “We were privileged to be picked to be among the few people in Africa to come to the ALS,” said Shatsala.

Read more on the ALS website

Image: The researchers at Beamline 7.3.3. Left to right: Yunfei Wang, Aidan Coffey, Miller Shatsala, Celline Omondi, Chenhui Zhu