NWS Grand Challenge Research Funding Announced

USDA has made $105 million available for 40 research and innovation projects focused on bolstering the nation's defense against New World screwworm.

“This is the culmination of a very extensive and expedited process to get these submissions in front of the right people, to vet them, and ultimately to approve them.”

With implementation of these projects also on an expedited timeline, according to USDA Agriculture Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, Dudley Hoskins.

Concurring with other aspects of the Department's five-prong plan to address the NWS threat. All together, USDA received 226 submissions. Funding awards are divided into four categories, each promoting Research and Development on NWS preparedness and response.

“The first priority for us was anything we could do to enhance sterile fly production," Hoskins said. "Any project that was submitted that would improve our production capacity, whether it was technology or technique, different diets for the screwworm as they're being raised and harvested. The second bucket, we really focused on traps and lures. Novel tools in that space was something we really wanted to focus on. The third bucket was anything we could do to enhance therapeutics and different treatments. Grateful to our FDA colleagues. They have been working overtime with some of the emergency use authorizations and conditional approvals. They've made, I think, on 12 or 13 different products at this point. The last bucket for the Screwworm Grand Challenge was on anything to help bolster preparedness and response.”

More information about USDA's New World Screwworm response efforts and the Grand Challenge are available online at the USDA’s New World Screwworm Website.

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