A cooperative program between the University of Vermont Entomology Research Laboratory [http://www.uvm.edu/~entlab] and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), in Aleppo, Syria was initiated in 1997. Several strains of entomopathogenic fungi have been isolated from insects in their over wintering sites in Turkey, Syria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Russia. In laboratory bioassays, they were tested against sunn pests, tarnished plant bug and western flower thrips. Several were highly pathogenic to all of these insects, and selected for further evaluation.