As none of the team members had actually been confronted with a bed bug infestation, luckily, we had to learn more about the subject. Reading scientific articles and discussing with experts was a first necessary step but it wasn’t enough. We needed to know more about people’s experience and feelings about bed bugs and to test the general publics opinion of our solution. That’s why we chose to conduct several surveys.

To ensure the widest possible audience, we made these surveys both in French and in English. Surveys were done through different forms: directly in the street or via google forms that we shared on our crowdfunding platform and with other iGEM teams (tec-Monterrey and Leiden). Here collected the answers from 131 people:

As we are a student team, a high proportion of answers were from students, this may cause a bias in the answers and should be taken into account.

As we can see on these two graphs and this map, people are quite concerned by beg bugs and not only in places where surveys were done (France, Mexico, The Netherlands) but also in Senegal, Egypt and in Brazil. Bed bugs are a worldwide issue. Then, we wanted to get a general idea of how people manage bed bug infestations.

These results show that even with current decontamination methods, the infestation persists in time and current solutions (like chemical treatment, steam, fumigation, diatomaceous earth, and canine scent detection) are not efficient and remain very costly as people can sometimes be charged up to 5,000€. Knowing that, we presented our concept and asked for people’s preferences and opinions.

The real problem that people perceive is the lack of efficiency of existing disinfestation methods. This is the major point that these answers reveal. 45% of respondents care more about an efficient solution than about an affordable one or an individual/personal solution. They are concerned about an ecologically friendly solution and speed of action was also an important point.

As GMOs are the heart of our project, we wanted to have the public's opinion about the use of Genetically Modified Organisms. First of all, we asked them about their knowledge on the subject. As expected, some but not all of them had a poorly defined vision and were quite skeptical. After a clear explanation of our work, they became more sensitive and aware of the GMO definition and more optimistic about it. Obviously, for biosafety and ethical reasons we had already chosen to only use purified components coming from genetically modified organisms such as pheromones from E.coli and chitinase from Beauveria bassiana. Thus no GMOs will be released in the environment.

However, we had considered using Beauveria bassiana (a non-harmful fungus currently used in agriculture) in a trap that will spread out across the room thanks to incoming and outgoing bed bugs or directly in the room for a faster result. That was actually the critical point of our project, that’s why the public's point of view was very important. We were really satisfied with the answers. More than 70% accepted the release of a fungus in their house. However, almost 60% would prefer to have the fungus stay inside a trap even if it takes longer to eliminate the infestation. Finally, thanks to this survey, we have chosen to focus on a trap that combines the presence of a fungus with purified chitinase and pheronomes for a more effective solution that is the key criteria for the general public.