Abstract:Pathogens and insect pests are the most formidable threats to sustainable crop production in China as well as the rest of the world. At present, the most common method of pest control is the use of chemical pesticides that target the basic metabolism, physiological and biochemical processes, and nerve receptors of pests and microbial organisms, leading to poisoning of humans and animals, agricultural pollution, and ecological damage. A great breakthrough in the next generation of pest control will be the artificial manipulation of bioinformation exchanges among crop, insect pests, and pathogenic microbial organisms. Decoding the molecular mechanisms of biointeractions is also one of the hot and frontier research areas in life sciences. The scientific discoveries and technological progress in this area, for example, the finding of RNAi phenomenon, discovery of immune receptor of eukaryotes, establishment of plant transformation technology and TALEN genome editing technology, have made paradigm shifts to the progress of entire life sciences. The strategic priority research project called Decoding the Mechanisms of Bio-interactions for Targeted Management of Agricultural Pests is the first and largest multi-disciplinary research program that sponsored by Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The project aims to decode the complex biological interaction mechanisms and to translate basic research knowledge to cutting-edge approaches for smarter pest and disease managements. Within just a short period of three years, this project has made great progress. A series of high impact papers were published and it produced creative approaches for pest control. These significant achievements elevate the level of China's insect and pathology sciences to a world-class and contribute to the crop protection from pest infections without compromising agricultural productivity and environmental health.