Category Archives: Bed Bugs World

VANCOUVER, British Columbia Regine Gries has been bitten by more than 1,000 bedbugs each week for the last five years and she allowed it to happen.

In fact, Gries welcomed the 180,000 bites.

Now her literal blood sacrifice has paid off.

She and her husband Gerhard, both biologist at Simon Fraiser University in Vancouver British Columbia, say they have figured out how to attract and repel the bloodsucking parasites.

It turns out bed bugs communicate by odor. The researchers have been able to identify that histamine effectively repelled the creepy creatures.

They also discovered five odors that attract bedbugs and could be used to draw them into death traps.

Thats where Regine Gries blood comes back into the story. She sacrificed her own skin night after night as part of the experimentation process to feed the bugs they were using in their research.

But her blood, sweat and probably tears may all have been worth it for people plagued by the beasts.

A Victoria British Columbia company, Contech Enterprises, is now developing what is being called the first affordable bait and trap for detecting and monitoring infestations.

Contech expects it to be commercially available next year.

Read the original:
Woman allows bed bugs to feed on her for 5 years, makes game-changing discovery

Courtesy: Simon Fraiser University

Courtesy: Simon Fraiser University

VANCOUVER, British Columbia A Canadian biologist sacrificed her skin and comfort for five years, inviting bedbugs to feed on her day after day; all in the name of science and discovery.

Now, Regine Gries says it has paid off.

The Simon Fraser University researcher began the project to find a bedbug repellant eight years ago. Her husband, Gerhard, is also a researcher and her lab partner and SFU chemist Robert Britton also led the project.

Regine endured 180,000 bedbug bites during their research. A lot of her blood was needed to feed the bedbug colony and to make their research successful.

When the bedbugs bit Gerhard he suffered a more serious reaction, while Regine suffered only a rash. So, she was chosen as the meal for the blood-sucking insects.

During their research, Gerhard and Regine and their team of university students learned that bedbugs communicate with odors. CNN reports one odor may be used like a dinner bell, to announcefresh meat, when another odor could indicate danger.

The researchers are now working with Contech Enterprises, Inc. out of Victoria, Canada, to re-create some of the odors so they can be used to bait and trap the bedbugs.

They expect the product to be available sometime in 2015.

Read the original here:
Thousands of bed bugs feast on woman for five years