Every citrus tree on earth will be dead in 10 years

Can you imagine a world without oranges or a world in which a single orange will cost $20? In our February Expand Your Horizons webcast I hosted Dr. Anne Simon the co-founder and CTO of Silvec Biologics to talk about the pandemic no one talks about and how Silvec was founded to fight that problem.

Anne received her PhD from Indiana University. She was a professor at the University of Massachusetts for 13 years and has been in the Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics at the University of Maryland for 21 years. Anne is the head of the University of Maryland Virology Program and teaches the Introductory Majors Biology course, for which she has been awarded the highest university teaching honor. She is a recipient of the Franski Prize for Research in Plant Virology and was elected a fellow of the Academy of Microbiology in 2014. For the past 14 years, she has been a senior editor of Journal of Virology, the top international virology journal.

Defining the problem: Many trees, like citrus, are dying from diseases caused by bacterial and fungal pathogens that are spread by humans and insects. This has been made worse by climate change that is weakening trees and the biggest problem is that there is no cure or treatment for any tree diseases. Here are just a few examples to illustrate the magnitude of global problem:

• Citrus Greening (aka HLB) is a disease caused by bacteria. Without a cure, this diseases will kill all citrus trees outside of greenhouses in 10 to 15 years (more on HLB below)
• Olive Tree Blight (bacteria) is killing millions of olive trees in Europe
• Pierce’s Disease (bacteria) is threatening the entire grape industry in the US

This just a short list but similar problems occur in apples, nuts, vineyards and many more.

All of these pathogens have one thing in common — they all inhabit the tree’s veins which are responsible for both transporting sugar from the leaves to the roots and transport water. The challenge that these pathogens create is that it is very very difficult to reach the veins and treat those diseases.

Some more information about Citrus Greening:

• This disease is considered to be the #1 agricultural problem in the world today
• 75% of all Florida Citrus are dead
• The USDA already invested more than $500 million to try to find a solution
• The disease is caused by insects called psyllids (Wikipedia) that deposit the bacteria in the tree
• For some reason the infected tree mounts an enormous, unnecessary defense against a tiny number of bacteria. As a result the tree produces certain sugars and proteins that clog up its veins and kills itself within few years. In essence you can think of it as an autoimmune reaction and there is no cure for that disease yet….

However, past research has provided some possible answers:

• Small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) have been shown to be therapeutics to kill pathogens in human and can be used in plants as well
• These siRNAs can also target tree’s genes expression to keep the tree from killing itself
• We also know that viruses move inside a plant and can be used as vehicles to deliver siRNAs
• The real challenge until today was that all past research focused on harmful viruses that you don’t want to infect the tree with. There were no good viruses to do this, until today.

The real breakthrough in Anne’s research was to find harmless viruses that can actually replicate and move inside the tree veins and carry the siRNAs. She found a virus like-RNA (called CYVaV) that is using a plant protein to move. Based on this research Silvec Biologics was created with the goal of developing the first universal platform for the treatment of trees and vines.

We were so impressed with Silvec’s technology and its ability to solve one of the biggest problems of our time that we decided to partner with them. Orbia Ventures, the CVC fund of Orbia has recently signed the papers to invest in Silvec. Together we hope to Advance Life around the World.