  A fundamental property of Morris-Thorne wormholes is the so-called flare-out
condition that automatically results in a violation of the null energy
condition (NEC) in classical general relativity. By contrast, in $f(R)$
modified gravity, the material threading the wormhole may actually satisfy the
NEC, while, at the same time, the effective stress-energy tensor arising from
the modified theory violates the NEC, thereby sustaining the wormhole. It is
shown in this paper that noncommutative geometry, an offshoot of string theory,
can be viewed as a special case of $f(R)$ gravity and can therefore sustain a
wormhole without the use of exotic matter. It also provides a motivation for
the choice of $f(R)$ in the modified gravitational theory.
