Israeli Start-up Senecio Robotics Reveals Its BioMosquito™ Technology
Senecio has just been granted a patent for this large scale mosquito suppression solution and many of its components
Multiple pending patents continue through the process receiving positive review
TEL AVIV, Israel, Aug. 4, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The female mosquito is the deadliest animal on planet and transmits diseases such as Malaria, Dengue, Yellow fever, West Nile, Zika, etc. with a death toll of hundreds of thousands per year and hospitalizing millions.
Sterile Insect Technique is a well-proven green technology, which has been employed by the USDA and others for decades against pests. Specifically the release of sterile male mosquitoes, driven by their biological imperative, act like smart bombs, seeking out wild females wherever they are located, including places chemicals do not reach. Given that females mate once in their lifetime, this has proven to cause a significant drop in the local mosquito population.
To date, all releases of sterile mosquitoes have been on a relatively small scale. For mass release to truly combat disease in a meaningful way, automation has to be added to the process of sorting males only, packaging the large quantities for release and distributing them.
Such programs are currently led by companies like Verily Life Science (a subsidiary of Alphabet, the Google parent company), MosquitoMate, Oxitec (an Intrexon subsidiary), Forrest Innovations and others, including NGO's such as the USAID, IAEA and others.
- Senecio Robotics, a pioneer in utilizing robotics in the production process, holds multiple patent applications with positive reviews for its state-of-the-art automatic mosquito manufacturing factory, utilizing deep learning and robotic technologies, the technology automatically sorts and package the male only mosquitoes into release cartridges, targeting a beyond state-of-the-art machine with millions of sterile male mosquitoes per day production capacity.
- The company has been granted patents which broadly enable the sequential release of cartridges from a moving van or a flying vehicle. Special aerial systems were developed and successfully tested in the US with the support of the BIRD foundation (An Israel-USA bilateral program). Senecio was the first company in the world to safely release mosquitoes while flying at high speed.
- Senecio Robotics has recently closed another capital round led by Ocean Azul Partners from Miami. This capital is being deployed to continue the innovation and build a field deployable machine for one of its partners, to be tested live in the US next quarter.
For more information see www.Senecio-Robotics.com
Contact : Hanan Lepek, CEO, [email protected], +972-(0)-522-754-194
SOURCE Senecio
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