Million Dollar Bugs

THE price tag on a research and development project leading to a new pesticidal chemical is estimated at $1 million. In citing this figure, George L. McNew, managing director of the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, pointed out that one big cost factor is the necessity for using empirical methods in the search which in turn requires testing upward of 2000 compounds to find an effective one. In a recent talk before the New York Section of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, McNew said that diseases, insects, and weeds destroy the output of 120 million acres each year. The problem of reducing this loss is one of the most challenging ones ever to face chemists and biologists. It is, McNew stated, "one of the truly great frontiers of modern chemical research." In this country we take for granted that food and fiber needs will always be met. The problem of food surpluses is a knotty ...