Buzz Off: Natural Compound Scatters Skeeters

By David Hunt  

Take your kids to the park during the summer and you're putting your family squarely on the front lines of an epic battle with one of nature's most effective killers. Those pesky mosquitoes may seem small and harmless, but don't be fooled by their fragile frames and lack of aerodynamic grace. Mosquitoes are nothing more than flying hypodermic needles with potentially deadly payloads, including West Nile virus, St. Louis encephalitis and dengue fever. They're responsible for more than one million deaths a year worldwide and more human suffering than any other organism on the planet.

In his laboratory at North Carolina State University, Dr. Michael Roe holds up a clear plastic box and studies the contents. Inside, more than a hundred tiny mosquitoes buzz about, searching for a way out of their involuntary confinement. As he returns the box to a table next to his desk, the entomologist describes some of the different types of mosquitoes that thrive in the southeastern U.S.

"I'm from Louisiana," he says. "So I know my mosquitoes."

Roe is more than a passive observer. As a result of his groundbreaking research, a North Carolina company is now manufacturing an all-natural, effective, long-lasting repellent proven to work against mosquitoes, ticks and other arthropods.

In the war against mosquito-borne diseases, Roe has developed a better kind of body armor. The compound, called BioUD, uses a naturally occurring substance derived from wild tomato plants.

It's an advance in several ways over older, more common chemicals on the market, including the ubiquitous DEET, which is used in most repellants. Read the fine print on DEET-based products and you may think twice about using them on children. But BioUD has been approved by the Environmental Protection Agency for use on everyone, even infants.

And – unlike DEET – you don't have to worry about applying BioUD on clothing or plastics. Plus, it's safe around the campfire.

"BioUD is not flammable," Roe explains. "Most DEET products should not be used around an open flame because of its potential to catch fire. But the base ingredient in BioUD is water. It will extinguish a flame."

The key selling point for BioUD is its effectiveness. While many natural products are perceived as weak substitutes for stronger chemical products, BioUD works like a charm.

"The most rigorous lab study we could design was to place 50 hungry female mosquitoes in a one-foot box. In that environment, BioUD worked as well as DEET," Roe says. "In fact, if you give a tick a choice between standing on a solution of 15 percent DEET or 7 percent BioUD, the tick will choose to stand on the DEET."

BioUD is a registered trademark of HOMS, LLC.

In the Office of Technology Transfer on the university's ultra-modern Centennial Campus, director Billy Houghteling, a former research scientist, is responsible for finding business partners to turn innovative research like Roe's into real-world products. It's a kind of high-tech matchmaking that's been remarkably successful.

The university holds nearly 600 patents, from antimicrobial peptides designed to fight epidemic diseases to solar arrays that incorporate super-efficient light harvesting arrays. To get these prototypes into the market – where they can improve lives and support the state's economic development – Houghteling and his staff must find entrepreneurs willing to invest time, money and business savvy on the ideas that stream out of university research labs. Last year alone, NC State entered into more than 100 licensing agreements with 70 business partners. And the university registered a record 41 patents in 2006, outpacing both Duke University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as an innovation powerhouse.

In the case of BioUD, the university negotiated an agreement with a Clayton, N.C.-based company, HOMS, LLC, to add the compound to its line of all-natural insect repellants. The product is now available nationwide through Wal-Mart, Kerr Drugs, Whole Foods Markets, Lowes Foods, Hannaford, Sweetbay and EarthFare.

"The research here at NC State is application based," Houghteling says. "It's not only about publishing papers, it's about coming up with solutions to real-world problems. By partnering with businesses and entrepreneurs, we have a vehicle to move our answers from the lab to the consumers."

Links:

• BioUD.com

• NC State Office of Technology Transfer