COPEG funds New World screwworm project

The Commission for the Eradication and Prevention of screwworm (COPEG) has awarded 4 years of funding for the continued development of tetracycline-repressible male-only strains of the New World screwworm, Cochliomyia hominivorax. The focus will be on developing genetic systems that are lethal to female flies at the embryo or early larval stages. The grant also included funding for the assembly of a high quality reference genome sequence of C. hominivorax. To facilitate genome assembly, highly inbred strains are being made by performing over 10 generations of single  pair crosses.