New insect repellant stronger than DEET discovered

[Guest guest]

New type of insect repellant may be thousands of times stronger than DEET

(PhysOrg.com) -- Imagine an insect repellant that not only is thousands of times

more effective than DEET – the active ingredient in most commercial mosquito

repellants – but also works against all types of insects, including flies, moths

and ants.

That possibility has been created by the discovery of a new class of insect

repellant made in the laboratory of Vanderbilt Professor of Biological Sciences

and Pharmacology ce Zwiebel and reported this week in the online Early

Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

" It wasn't something we set out to find, " said Rinker, a graduate student

who performed the study in collaboration with graduate student Pask and

post-doctoral fellow . " It was an anomaly that we noticed in our

tests. "

The tests were conducted as part of a major interdisciplinary research project

to develop new ways to control the spread of malaria by disrupting a mosquito's

sense of smell supported by the Grand Challenges in Global Health Initiative

funded by the Foundation for the NIH through a grant from the Bill & Melinda

Gates Foundation.

" It's too soon to determine whether this specific compound can act as the basis

of a commercial product, " Zwiebel cautioned. " But it is the first of its kind

and, as such, can be used to develop other similar compounds that have

characteristics appropriate for commercialization. "

The discovery of this new class of repellant is based on insights that

scientists have gained about the basic nature of the insect's sense of smell in

the last few years...

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-05-biologists-class-insect-repellent.html