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CapitalPress.com
September 11, 2015
People & Places
Researcher seeks natural insect controls
Anandasankar Ray
targets spotted
wing drosophila fly
in experiments
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
A research entomologist
at the University of Califor-
nia-Riverside may have found
a non-toxic control for spotted
wing drosophila and is work-
ing on doing the same for oth-
er insects.
Anandasankar Ray was
born in Calcutta, India, raised
in a small town near there
and excelled in school. After
completing his undergraduate
and master’s degrees in India,
he came to the United States
and received his doctorate in
molecular, cellular and devel-
opmental biology from Yale
University in 2005.
Since 2007, he has headed
the Disease Vector Research
Center at UC-Riverside,
studying insects that transmit
animal and plant diseases.
He is an associate profes-
sor of entomology focusing
on the molecular basis of in-
sect olfaction — the sense
of smell. His wife, Anupama
Dahanukar, also an associate
professor of entomology at
the center, studies how insects
taste things.
“At Yale, I realized the
sense of smell is one of the
most challenging to under-
stand. My lab tries to under-
stand mechanisms that under-
lie insect olfaction. The key
is how do insects detect such
a wide variety of odors and
process that information,” Ray
said.
In 2013, his lab designed
new computer software to
predict new types of insect
repellent. The idea was to find
better alternatives to dieth-
yltoluamide, popularly known
as DEET, the most common
active ingredient in most insect
repellents.
The work revealed hun-
dreds of natural chemicals in
food and bacteria and tested
Courtesy of I. Pittalwala/UC-Riverside
Christine Krause Pham, left, and Anandasankar Ray look at blueberries used in lab tests on the effec-
tiveness of butyl anthranilate, known by the initials BA, on spotted wing drosophila.
Western Innovator
Anandasankar Ray
Age: 41
Born: Calcutta, India. Raised in
nearby small town.
Family: Wife, Anupama Dahanukar,
associate professor of entomology,
University of California-Riverside; daughter, Zoya, eight months.
Education: Bachelor’s degree in chemistry, Presidency Univer-
sity, Calcutta, India, 1996; master’s degree in biotechnology, Jnu
University, New Delhi, India, 1998; doctorate in molecular, cellular
and developmental biology, Yale University, 2005.
Occupation: Associate professor of entomology and director of
Disease Vector Research Center, UC-Riverside.
Work History: Post-doctorate researcher, Yale University, 2005 to
2007.
several from grapes and fruit
classified as safe for human
consumption.
“Chemicals safe enough for
food products are great to work
with where we don’t want to
spray toxic insecticides before
harvest,” Ray said.
His work first centered on
insect repellents for people. He
won awards for developing the
non-toxic Kite Mosquito Patch
to block mosquitoes’ ability to
efficiently detect carbon di-
oxide, their primary means of
finding human blood.
But Ray also was interested
in invasive plant pests.
“We decided to pick one
as a test and realized spotted
wing drosophila causes im-
mense damage in Northern
California, Oregon and Eu-
rope,” he said.
In 2014 and 2015, he tested
butyl anthranilate, known by
the initials BA, which is a nat-
ural, non-toxic compound, that
smells like grapes and is found
in low concentrations in sever-
al fruits. It is approved by the
U.S. Food and Drug Adminis-
tration as a food additive and is
commonly used for flavor and
fragrance.
Ray tested it on blueberries
for spotted wing drosophila.
BA targets the same neurons in
insect antennae that respond to
DEET.
Ray found that a single
treatment of 2.5 percent BA
reduced the number of eggs,
larvae and pupae in the blue-
berries by about 50 percent
and that 10 percent reduced
them to zero.
Next year, he plans to partner
with an agriculture protection
company for field trials with an
eye toward Environmental Pro-
tection Agency registration of a
commercial product in another
two to three years.
The UC-Riverside Office
of Technology Commercial-
ization helped Ray start Senso-
rygen Inc., last year to develop
the BA technology. The office
has filed for a patent and li-
censed it to Sensorygen.
“We’ve found hundreds of
natural chemicals. BA is only
one of them. So we have many
to try. We’re just beginning to
explore and understand which
works best with what types
of insects and how long they
last,” he said.
Ray said he has data that
suggest the natural chemicals
could be effective against
ants, bed bugs, fruit flies,
mosquitoes and just about
any insect. He believes they
could be used on fruit grown
in fields or greenhouses and
fruit in storage.
“We are approaching all of
these avenues to see if we can
make an impact to reduce crop
and food damage and with the
longterm idea of improving
existing insecticides,” he said.
Natural chemicals could
be sprayed on most of a field,
funneling insects to a smaller
portion sprayed with insecti-
cides. “Insects don’t like the
smell of these natural chem-
icals so when they fly into a
feeding site, they would direct
them to the insecticide,” Ray
said.
It could reduce insecticide
usage.
“Thousands of tons of tox-
ic chemicals are used to pro-
tect our food chain and still
30 to 40 percent of crops are
destroyed by insects world-
wide,” he said.
Use of BA for spotted wing
drosophila in cherries should
allow for use of the natural
bait, GF-120, to control cher-
ry fruit fly again, Ray said.
GF-120 was used exten-
sively in Central Washington
prior to the arrival of spot-
ted wing drosophila in 2010.
Delegate with the active in-
gredient spinetoram, Entrust
with spinosad, Warrior with
lambda-cyhalothrin,
Sevin
with carbaryl and malathion
are used for spotted wing dro-
sophila in cherries. They are
not compatible with GF-120.
“It looks like an interest-
ing concept,” said Elizabeth
Beers, entomologist at the
Washington State University
Tree Fruit Research and Ex-
tension Center in Wenatchee.
“We’ve looked at some
other repellent properties
from other materials for spot-
ted wing drosophila. The
difficulty is do they stop egg
laying and how long do they
last,” she said. “Growers
can’t spray twice a day. It also
comes down to cost.”
“It looks promising but
there’s a long way to go be-
fore we know,” said Jim
McFerson, the center’s di-
rector. “It’s great news and
should be pursued. It needs
research to determine ultimate
use at the orchard and packing
shed levels.”
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Australian sheep yields 30 sweaters worth of fleece
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CANBERRA, Australia
— A lost, overgrown sheep
found in Australian scrubland
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first time on Thursday, yield-
ing 40 kilograms (89 pounds)
of wool — the equivalent of
30 sweaters — and shedding
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Tammy Ven Dange, chief
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RSPCA ACT/ via AP
In this photo provided by the RSPCA/Australian Capital Territory, an overgrown sheep found in Austra-
lian scrubland is prepared to be shorn in Canberra, Australia, Sept. .. The wild, castrated merino ram
named Chris, yielded 89 pounds of wool — the equivalent of .0 sweaters — and sheded almost half
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44-kilogram
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because he was stressed by
human company and because
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heavy fleece tearing skin as it
fell away.
Ven Dange said he had suf-
fered skin burns from urine
trapped in his fleece and could
have died within weeks if left
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quality, but you wouldn’t ex-
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said.
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