The following is a public record
United States Patent
Paldi et al .
Patent No .: US 10,888,579 B2
Date of Patent : * Jan . 12 , 2021
This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser . No. 13 / 332,430 , filed on Dec. 21 , 2011 , which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser . No. 12 / 222,949 , filed on Aug. 20 , 2008 , now U.S. Pat . No. 8,097,712 , which claims the benefit of priority from U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60 / 996,244 , filed on Nov. 7 , 2007. The contents of the above applications are all incorporated herein by reference .
Colony Collapse Disorder ( CCD ) of honeybees is threatening to annihilate U.S. and world agriculture . Indeed , in the recent outbreak of CCD in the U.S in the winter of 2006 2007, an estimated 25% or more of the 2.4 million honeybee hives were lost because of CCD. An estimated 23% of beekeeping operations in the United States suffered from CCD over the winter of 2006-2007, affecting an average of 45% of the beekeepers operations. In the winter of 2007-2008 , the CCD action group of the USDA - ARS estimated that a total of 36% of all hives from commercial operations were destroyed by CCD .
That CCD is due to the introduction of a previously unrecognized infectious agent is supported by preliminary evidence that CCD is transmissible through the reuse of equipment from CCD colonies and that such transmission can be broken by irradiation of the equipment before use .
Recently, Israeli acute paralysis virus of bees ( IAPV, SEQ ID NO : 6 ) , was strongly correlated with CCD . Indeed, Table 1 below shows that although other etiological agents of diseases in honeybees were found in CCD colonies , many were also found in apparently healthy , asymptomatic operations . In contrast, IAPV was not only found in 83% of CCD colonies , but was almost completely absent from apparently healthy colonies .
* comment *
They wrote that in 2007 "Colony Collapse Disorder ( CCD ) of honeybees is threatening to annihilate U.S. and world agriculture." I know hindsight is 20/20 but that didn't happen. Of course, the annihilation of world agriculture would be a bad thing for everybody, and since their invention seeks to prevent that, it must be a good thing for everybody. The patent application runs almost 50 pages, but here is the crux:
What is claimed is :
A method for increasing the tolerance of an adult bee
to a disease caused by at least one bee pathogen , comprising
feeding the adult bee an effective amount of a bee - ingestible
composition comprising bee feed and a double stranded
ribonucleic acid ( dsRNA ) comprising an RNA sequence
capable of hybridizing to an mRNA transcript encoding a
polypeptide or an RNA target sequence of the at least one
bee pathogen , thereby increasing the tolerance of the adult
bee to the disease , wherein the dsRNA is a naked dsRNA and
the bee - ingestible composition does not comprise a trans
fection promoting agent .
Although the invention has been described in conjunction
with specific embodiments thereof, it is evident that many
alternatives, modifications and variations will be apparent to
those skilled in the art . Accordingly , it is intended to
embrace all such alternatives , modifications and variations
that fall within the spirit and broad scope of the appended claims .
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posted by PLB. 11 Feb 2021
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