THE FALL ARMYWORM (FAW) IS A POLYPHAGOUS PEST THAT CAUSES ECONOMIC LOSSES TO MANY CROPS.VORACIOUS FEEDING, YEAR-ROUND BREEDING AND HIGHLY EFFICIENT DETOXIFICATION SYSTEM TO COPE WITHPLANT TOXINS AND INSECTICIDES MAKE THIS A MAJOR INTERNATIONAL PEST. THEREFORE, THERE IS A NEED TO STUDYTHE MOLECULAR BASIS OF BIOLOGICAL PROCESSES THAT MAKE THIS INSECT A SUCCESSFUL INVADER AND PEST. ONEOF THE REASONS FOR THE LACK OF FUNCTIONAL GENOMICS INFORMATION ON THIS INSECT IS ITS POOR RESPONSE TORNA INTERFERENCE (RNAI). THE CRISPR/CAS9 GENOME EDITING METHOD COULD HELP TO OVERCOMETHESE LIMITATIONS. PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENTS SHOWED THAT CRISPR/CAS9 SYSTEM WORKS IN FAW. THEMAJOR GOAL OF THIS PROPOSAL IS TO DEVELOP THE CRISPR/CAS9 SYSTEM FOR EFFICIENT KNOCKOUT OF GENESIN FAW. TO BE ABLE TO IDENTIFY MUTANTS IN G0, METHODS BASED ON MULTIPLE SGRNAS IN COMBINATIONWITH MARKER SGRNA WILL BE DEVELOPED. THE CRISPR/CAS9 SYSTEM WILL BE EMPLOYED TO IMPROVERNAI EFFICIENCY IN FAW BY MUTATING DSRNASE GENES AND BY EXPRESSING SID-1 DSRNA TRANSPORTERGENE FROM CAENORHABDITIS ELEGANS AND STAUFENC GENE FROM LEPTINOTARSA DECELIMINEATA, THE TWOGENES SHOWN TO BE REQUIRED FOR EFFICIENT RNAI IN NEMATODES AND BEETLES RESPECTIVELY. THE PROPOSEDRESEARCH WILL DEVELOP CRISPR/CAS9 AND RNAI METHODS THAT COULD HELP IN FUNCTIONAL GENOMICSRESEARCH LEADING TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF NOVEL AND EFFICIENT METHODS TO CONTROL FAW.