Dr. Agenor Mafra-Neto is the founder, president, and CEO of ISCA Inc., which for more than 20 years has developed and bought to the world eco-friendly controls for arthropod pests that destroy crops or spread human diseases.

After growing up on his parents’ farms in Brazil, he studied biology and became fascinated with the power and potential of pheromones and other semiochemicals to control problem insects. His doctoral work resulted in groundbreaking discoveries about the flight patterns of moths lured by pheromones.

Dr. Mafra-Neto founded ISCA in 1996 to overcome the technical and cost barriers that previously limited the use of pheromones and other semiochemicals to control insects in agriculture. He has led ISCA to become a world leader in identifying, synthesizing, and effectively deploying these compounds in the field to protect crops by disrupting pest insect mating by attracting them to killing agents or by repelling them from crops, among other behavioral strategies. The need for such innovations is urgent as pest insect species are becoming resistant to conventional insecticides and to genetically modified crops that now dominate the world marketplace.