Project Objectives

PROJECT OBJECTIVES

THE DISEASE BURDEN

Fire blight, caused by Erwinia amylovora, is a devastating bacterial disease of many rosaceous plants with great commercial interest, especially pome fruit species. Erwinia amylovora is native to North America and was introduced into northern Europe in the 1950-1960s. Today, it is globally distributed.

TODAY’S FIRE BLIGHT MANAGEMENT MAJOR CHALLENGE: LACK OF AN EFFICIENT TREATMENT

Although, infected brunches can be successfully pruned, this does not constitute an efficient treatment of fire blight. Today, there is not an official cure for this disease and there have been cases that people have been misled into expensive treatments which led the disease to have been spread because homeowners were taken in by the fraudulent claims for a cure.

Overall, current fire blight control measures lack of full efficacy, are expensive, labour-intensive and difficult to implement. Thus, proper orchard management against fire blight is mainly conditioned by the limited preventive measures to face the explosive nature of epidemics and its great tree-killing ability. In consequence, this disease results in substantial economic losses for growers, significantly threating the pome fruit industry worldwide. Economic pressures and both environmental and trade regulations support the urgent need for alternative solutions to overcome present fire blight control and management challenges.

Based on years of lab research and experience in the microbiology field, in response to the unmet need the PhageFire Consortium aims to bring to the market the first phage-based biopesticide in Europe for the effective control of Erwinia amylovora infections in pome fruit species. Our final offering uses a natural enemy of this bacterium, currently present in nature: bacteriophages. Bacteriophages are viruses that require bacteria to survive; they basically become “living” once they invade a host bacterium. The novel biopesticide aims at directly controlling Ea in pome fruit orchards prior to further processing. PhageFire is conceived as an environmentally friendly (chemical free), reliable, safe and cost-effective solution to help pome fruit growers control fire blight production losses. Previous research findings have revealed the positive effects of phages to control Erwinia amylovora. Besides, proof of concept field trials with E. amyolvora phages in real environments (i.e. pome fruit orchards) have proven to significantly control fire blight. Based on these compelling results, PhageFire key advantages are summarized as:

Cost-effective.
Easily administered.
Safe and highly specific.
Natural & environment-friendly.

Quick response to phage-resistances: phages may quickly response to phage-resistant bacteria mutants because phages mutation rates are significantly higher than those of bacteria.

Based on years of lab research and experience in the microbiology field, in response to the unmet need the PhageFire Consortium aims to bring to the market the first phage-based biopesticide in Europe for the effective control of Erwinia amylovora infections in pome fruit species. Our final offering uses a natural enemy of this bacterium, currently present in nature: bacteriophages. Bacteriophages are viruses that require bacteria to survive; they basically become “living” once they invade a host bacterium. The novel biopesticide aims at directly controlling Ea in pome fruit orchards prior to further processing. PhageFire is conceived as an environmentally friendly (chemical free), reliable, safe and cost-effective solution to help pome fruit growers control fire blight production losses. Previous research findings have revealed the positive effects of phages to control Erwinia amylovora. Besides, proof of concept field trials with E. amyolvora phages in real environments (i.e. pome fruit orchards) have proven to significantly control fire blight. Based on these compelling results, PhageFire key advantages are summarized as:

Cost-effective.
Easily administered.
Safe and highly specific.
Natural & environment-friendly.

Quick response to phage-resistances: phages may quickly response to phage-resistant bacteria mutants because phages mutation rates are significantly higher than those of bacteria.

PROJECT GOAL

The main objective of the PhageFire project is to improve control and management of fire blight in pome fruits by developing an effective phage-based biopesticide to prevent and combat Erwinia amylovora infections. The idea of the project is to offer a biopesticide based on for bacteriophages with lytic activity against the most relevant E. amylovora strains affecting pear, apple and quince tree species within the EU region, with the intention of first elaborating and then commercializing a phytosanitary product based on a mixture of selected effective, environment-resistant phages. To successfully complete the project, we will initiate the required regulatory pathways (field trials permit; exceptional use approvals under Article 53 of EU’s Regulation 1107/2009 to surpass the very high registration costs), increase production capacity, establish commercialization agreements and extend our IPR to protect our technology.