Ever heard of the American Chestnut Society folks? We have chestnuts down in our woods. Has to be the American because no one would have ever went back there just to plant them. I sure hope they are successful in breeding back and creating a resistant strain. One of our dulcimers is made from wormy chestnut wood. A fellow in Townsend Tn built it out of lumber he got from a huge barn tear down years ago.
I send them membership every year
http://www.acf.org/ . Their backcrossing program is only one of several approaches being tried. Chestnuts are close to making a comeback.
There are several of the resistant crosses planted on the Washington DC mall, as memorials to USDA employees lost in Afghanistan.
There are relictual stands in several states and outplanted orchards in Wisconsin and Oregon. The famous Salem Wisconsin outlier (a planted woodlot) now has blight, but trees are being protected by deliberately injecting hypo-virulent strains. I know the relicts in Georgia and Alabama have been sampled for resistance (as opposed to avoiding the blight by being remote from Red Oak, the alternate host of the fungus).
Beekeepers might be interested that the toxic nature of the fungus is its release of Oxalic Acid-- damages the trees delicate cambium.
Pix of a blight-resistant Memorial American Chestnut planted at USDA headquarters on Washington DC Mall.