The Pentagon’s research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is helping combat the resurgence of the flesh-eating New World Screwworm (NWS) in the United States through its newly launched Genetic Utilization for Advanced Regulation and Defense of Indigenous and Native Species (GUARDIAN) program.
In a statement, DARPA said the initiative aims to develop long-term biological and technological solutions to counter invasive species that threaten agriculture, ecosystems, and food supplies, including NWS and the brown tree snake.
“DARPA is developing novel technologies to safely and efficaciously eliminate the risks that invasive species pose,” Michael Koeris, director of the Biological Technologies Office at DARPA wrote on X.
The New World Screwworm (NWS – despite it’s name is a cousin of the blowfly 🪰) is a scourge to livestock like cattle (🐄) and other warm blooded animals larger than a squirrel (🐿️). We eradicated it in 1966 in the U.S., pushed it back to Panama thanks to the USDA and held it at…
— Michael Koeris (@mkoeris) June 11, 2026
“Invasive species are a national resilience challenge with significant economic and food supply implications, which DARPA recognizes as a national security risk,” Catherine Campbell, program manager in the agency’s Biological Technologies Office, told DefenseScoop.
The announcement follows the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service confirming the first U.S. case of New World screwworm on June 3, after the parasite, which attacks living flesh, was detected in a 3-week-old calf in south Texas near the U.S.-Mexico border.
According to a USDA tracking dashboard, a total of nine New World screwworm cases had been recorded in the U.S. as of June 11.
Here in Harper, TX where one of the state’s five confirmed cases of New World Screwworm infected a goat on Monday.
State agencies have set up four “Infested Zones” designed to stop the spread, and restrict the movement of livestock.@cbsaustin pic.twitter.com/qwLGaTXXot
— Vinny Martorano (@VinnyMartorano) June 11, 2026
DARPA Director Stephen Winchell said the potential economic and food-supply consequences of a widespread outbreak warrant a coordinated government response.
“Agricultural security is national security, and DARPA has proactively invested in breakthrough suppression technologies for threats such as the New World Screwworm,” Winchell said in an email to DefenseScoop. “These technologies are engineered to be thousands of times more effective than current approaches while still integrating directly with USDA operations.”
According to reports, NWS last reached Texas in 1966, and it led to hundreds of millions of dollars in cattle losses.
Ecologist Jeremy Radachowsky said the recent detection of NWS was not unexpected, adding that illegal cattle smuggling has helped drive the parasite’s resurgence decades after it was eradicated in the U.S.
“Every cow that is being moved illegally has the potential to carry a screwworm and other diseases,” Radachowsky said.
Researchers say the parasite has reappeared as smuggled cattle carrying infections moved through Central America into Mexico, Texas and New Mexico. According to a 2022 report from the think tank InSight Crime, organized crime groups are behind cattle trafficking.
“What we really need are the governments of the United States, Mexico and (Central American countries) to come together and take considerable action in things that only they can do, in order to shut down this illicit activity,” Radachowsky said.
