A team of biologists, a chemist and students from Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., announced Monday that they have identified a set of chemicals that can lure bedbugs into traps and keep them there. Biologist Regine Gries, who with her husband Prof. Gerhard Gries, form part of the team, said she was initially a little reluctant and disgusted to act as a host so the pests could feed and scientists could gather and analyze the bugs skin and feces. The Gries research began eight years ago, when they initially isolated a pheromone mix that attracted bedbugs in lab experiments, but not in bedbug-infested apartments. "We realized that a highly unusual component must be missing — one that we couldn’t find using our regular gas chromatographic and mass spectrometric tools," said Gerhard Gries. Britton was then brought in to the team to study the tiny amounts of chemicals Regine Gries had isolated from shed bedbug skin and figure out why bedbugs find human skin so appealing. Britton, the Gries and their students then discovered a histamine, a molecule that had previously eluded researchers, signalled a "safe shelter" to the bedbugs, meaning once they came into contact with it they remained in place. Key to bedbug trap is in the feces 
 
 ​However, despite their extensive research, the Gries and their team still could not combine the histamine or pheromone blend to make an effective trap — so they began analyzing airborne chemicals from bedbug feces. Their bedbug trap has been successfully tested in bedbug-infested apartments in Metro Vancouver and the team is now working with Victoria-based Contech Enterprises Inc. to develop the trap commercially. "I’m not too thrilled about this...But knowing how much this technology will benefit so many people, it’s all worth it."
– If, someday, bedbugs are no longer a cause for concern, remember to thank Regine Gries. She's a biologist in British Columbia who was willing to tolerate 180,000 bites as a host for the creatures so that her team could study them. "I calmed myself down thinking when human beings were still living in caves, they were probably bitten by bedbugs, by fleas, by mice and who knows what," she tells the Canadian Press via CTV. "So I think humans can endure this, and I'm lucky enough that I have no side effects, that I just can handle it." It seems her work has paid off. The researchers, including Gries' husband, found a histamine molecule that, to the bugs, indicates a "safe space," the Press reports; once the bugs find it, they stick around. The researchers lured them to the trap using a pheromone blend and components from the bedbugs' own feces; the histamine then keeps them there. The cost of the chemicals? Less than a dime per trap. "The biggest challenge in dealing with bedbugs is to detect the infestation at an early stage," Gries' husband tells Simon Fraser University News. "This trap will help landlords, tenants, and pest-control professionals determine whether premises have a bedbug problem, so that they can treat it quickly." The trap should be on the market next year, CBC reports. That's particularly good news for Chicago, which was reported earlier this year to be America's worst city for bedbugs. (Another researcher suffered bee stings in the name of science.)