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When Dale Clayton moved to the University of Utah to study the relationship between birds and parasites, he hit a snag that threatened his research. He couldn't keep feather lice alive in his lab because Utah's dry air, especially in winter, sapped the moisture from the tiny parasites.
His solution was to humidify his lab, but it occurred to him that dry air could be deployed to eradicate lice from human heads. That eureka moment came to fruition this fall with the patenting of LouseBuster, a new federally approved device that kills head lice in 30-minute treatments without chemicals.
"It's like sticking your head out the window of a car going 100 or more mph and the effect it would have on your eyes. It's dessication. It would dry them out faster if you're in the desert," said Clayton, a professor of biology whose research speciality is evolutionary parasitology. "It's an ecological rather than a chemical approach to treating head lice."
In research that will be published in January, Clayton's device was shown to eradicate almost 95 percent of the lice and their eggs infesting the heads of 56 children and adults. After demonstrating proof of the concept four years ago, Clayton co-founded a university spinoff company called Larada Sciences to develop a commercially viable machine and lease it to schools, camps, clinics and professional delousing firms. The result was LouseBuster, which sells for $2,000.
"It's not something parents are going to buy and use on their own. It puts the problem in the hands of a professional," Clayton said.
One of LouseBuster's early adopters is Amy Goldreyer, the proprietor of Hair Whisperers. The Los Angeles business takes the device to customer's homes to treat patients at $195 a pop.
"It's the only thing out there that you can guarantee gets rid of everything with one visit. You still have to comb," Goldreyer said. "For the majority, it's going to end the constant worry, 'Are we done with it, are we done with it?' "
Goldreyer recently relieved her 1,000th customer of head lice since acquiring the machine in April, the month it became available.
"Amy is a real good getter. She was a what we call a 'nitpicker' for years before she got a LouseBuster," said Larada president and co-founder Larry Rigby. There are now 148 machines in use in 20 U.S. states and 12 other countries, according to Rigby, who expects LouseBuster will be treating 1 million people a year soon.
He believes each year head lice afflict 20 million people who are willing to pay the $100 to $300 a treatment costs.
"It's a global business with a unique distribution channel with individuals entrepreneurs with the ability to create their own business with high margins," Rigby said.
The study proving LouseBuster's efficacy, to be published in the Journal of Medical Entomology, was conducted on lice sufferers in Utah, Tennessee and Florida to capture outcomes in humid climates, as well as dry ones like Utah's, said co-author Sarah Bush, an assistant professor of biology at the U. After treatment by experienced operators, researchers found 88.2 percent of the lice combed out of the person's head were dead, and 99.2 percent of the eggs, called nits, failed to hatch. Many of the lice that weren't killed immediately died later.
"The most amazing thing is that it works on eggs. The other treatments don't kill eggs," Bush said. The study was funded by the National Science Foundation and Larada, in which Clayton has a financial stake.
There is no reliable data on the prevalence of head lice infestations. Most cases are detected at school, but research suggests they are picked up at sleepovers.
"There's an old wives tale that it stems from poor hygiene. Hygiene isn't the cause. If anything, lice prefer clean hair to dirty hair. The whole stigma is a nonsense," said Clayton, whose own children developed stubborn cases a few years ago. Like agricultural pesticides, louse shampoos have become increasingly ineffective.
"Insects are notoriously good at evolving resistances to chemicals," Bush said. "Being able to deal with dessication is a fundamental property of water loss. There's not a single-point mutation that will allow an insect to evolve resistance to dessication."
While developing his prototype, Clayton discovered that standard blow dryers and bonnet-style dryers did not work because they tended to mat down the hair, protecting the lice. His solution was to drive air through a hose and out a single-use applicator tip that directs the air to the roots of the hair where the lice hide their nits. LouseBuster pushes two to three times as much air as a blow dryer, although at lower temperatures, around 138 degrees.
A weapon in the war on lice
A new invention by University of Utah biologist Dale Clayton eradicates lice by directing 138-degree air over the scalp. A forthcoming study finds that LouseBuster kills 88 percent of lice and nearly all the eggs after half-hour treatments.
A U. spin-off company, Larada Sciences, sells and leases the device to schools, camps, clinics and businesses. Larada has so far sold or leased 148 machines and expects LouseBuster will soon be treating an estimated 1 million people annually.