Our Club
The Middletown Bioengineering Club is interested in using synthetic biology to help beekeepers fight off the destructive wax moth, whose larva devour the honeycombs of weakened honey bee colonies.

Our Cause
Beekeepers often try to keep wax moths away from their hives by hanging a bottle containing sugar water and a banana nearby.  This concoction attracts all kinds of insects to the bottle where they fall in the water and become trapped.



Our Plan
We're planning to use technology that was developed by the 2014 NCTU Formosa iGEM team to attract specific species of moths to a trap by using the moths' pheromone biosynthesis activating neuropeptide (PBAN).

Each species of moth produces a unique form of PBAN that causes females of the species to produce pheromones, which attract males.  The NCTU Formosa team showed that when PBAN is produced by bacteria and added to sugar water, it will cause the female moths, who drink the PBAN water, to attract males to the trap. 



We hope to follow the Formosa team's strategy and create wax moth trap using wax moth-specific PBAN.  In order to do this we must use polymerase chain reaction to extract the PBAN gene from the wax moth and put it into bacteria, which will make the PBAN protein.

Our Need
Please help us build this pheromone trap, which will help beekeepers protect their hives from this invasive species of moth.   Add a comment, share this link, and consider donating.  We need to raise $4000 by the end of May to register our team with iGEM and receive the genetic materials we need to make our plan reality.

Our club was recently featured alongside two other Frederick-area teams in the Frederick News Post.