Bed bugs share our beds, feed on our blood at night, and they disappear by dawn, often leaving nothing more than a raised welt on our skin, a token of last night’s encounter. Why is it so hard to prevent and control them?
Traditional pharmaceutical companies simply can’t afford to spend the $1 billion or more it takes to bring a drug all the way to market when the affected population is too poor to buy the drugs, or too small to make a dent in the investment. Organizations like SRI fill the gap.
Bed bug bites can cause adverse reactions such as rashes, lesions, allergies, and psychological distress, and the pests most significantly impact the most vulnerable in our society.
Recent work in SRI's Cancer Biology Program indicates that an enzyme that regulates ATP - the cell’s fuel sensor - could hold a key to suppressing some aggressive tumors.
