Throughout our lives we have always heard the well-known bedtime saying: Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite. Despite this warning, bed bugs have been biting more than ever in the last ten years, and have become a real problem for the lives of people around the world, including those on campus.

According to Coby Schal , professor in entomology, bed bugs are little insects that live indoors and prefer nice, dark areas: like our beds. These bugs feed on human blood and can live anywhere in the world as long as there is a human around to feed on. They come in colonies and yet, many people are not extremely familiar with them.

“I know that they are really hard to get rid of and I witnessed them when I was in New York,” Zainab Baloch , a junior in psychology, said. “I heard if they get into your mattress, then you literally have to throw it away, as well as your other furniture.”

Schal has studied insects and urban entomology since 1976, specifically on cockroaches. In the last three years, he picked up the study of bed bugs because of the increasing problem it was becoming. The lab has collected bed bugs from all over the country to do genetic testing to enhance understanding of how they infect humans and to find a way to effectively remove the pest.

“We have about 40 different colonies of bed bugs in the lab, each of them representing a specific area and type of genetics,” Schal said. “There are ten populations from North Carolina. All in all, I wouldn’t be surprised if we have a million bed bugs here in the lab.”

Bed bugs normally feed on humans, so in the beginning Schal would let the bugs feed on him, but after two weeks, he had negative reactions. Now, these bed bugs are fed with rabbit blood, which simulates human feeding.

“We are looking to understand [the bed bug’s] biology better, so we can come up with a more targeted way to treat them,” Rick Santangelo , a research specialist working in the Schal lab, said.

The Urban Entomology department is researching a way to treat bed bug infestations. According to Schal , this requires killing the insects without having to spray a whole house with pesticides or do an expensive heat treatment.

The topic of research for Schal’s team right now is a liquid bait. Schal said the concept of liquid bait is to make an artificial human for the bed bugs to feed on. According to Schal , the first step is to find out what attracts bed bugs to humans. Then they must decipher what chemicals the bed bugs are most attracted to.

The third step includes putting those chemicals into an artificial feeder so that the bed bugs will feed on it. In this artificial feeder would be a pesticide that would not only kill the bed bug, but could be transferred to the rest of the colony. 

Santagelo has worked with Schal for nine years and said the lab not only does research, but provides bed bugs to those who need them. Bed bugs are supplied for training dogs to detect live bed bugs and eggs, and also for companies to test their pesticides.  Everyone is trying to get rid of bed bugs  through pesticides, but at the lab, they are working to find the most effective manner of removal.

This Saturday, from 9:00 a.m . to 5:00 p.m ., the N.C . Museum of Natural Sciences will hold its annual Bug Fest. This event will showcase the research on bed bugs, cockroaches, and the other insects that the entomology department works with.