Advanced tools for bed bug pest management

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Bed bugs are obligate blood feeders on humans. In recent years, bed bug infestations have increased dramatically in many countries including Canada and USA, leading to a renewed interest in designing better management tools and control options. According to Health Canada they can now be found everywhere from homeless shelters to five-star hotels, and even on public transportation. Given that bed bugs are among the most difficult pests to eradicate due to their small size, demonstrated resistance to conventional insecticides and their ease of transport, the key objective of the proposed research is to facilitate the development of products for management of bed bugs, a re-emerged public health pest, based on i. semiochemicals - non-toxic behaviour-modifying substances, and ii. natural products such as diatomaceous earth (DE) and botanical insecticides. The overall goals of this proposal are to develop an indoor pest management system against the common bed bug, Cimex lectularius based on: a. behavior-modifying synthetic pheromone analogs as repellents for personal protection and attractants for trapping and monitoring; b. synergistic effects of binary mixtures of repellents or attractants; c. enhanced DE for lethal effects against bed bugs; d. mixtures of DE and attractants = "attract and kill" strategy; e. mixtures of DE and pea extract/pea protein or other natural materials to increase the efficacy of DE. There are few non-toxic management tools available to mitigate bed bugs. Development of such tools would not only be beneficial to two young Vancouver companies (SemioBIO Technologies, DE Laboratories), but of potential socio-economic value globally as resurgence of this pest has occurred worldwide.