USM professors are creating an insect repellent

Hattiesburg, Miss. - Two Southern Miss professors have been working with the army for a while now.

They're working on developing an insect repellent that can work in any type of environment.

USM associate professor, Paige Buchanan said, "So this project originated to try and answer some of those big questions. How to not just look at commercial bug repellents that are currently in the market, but bug repellents that are under development elsewhere. Because the end result of this project will be the design of an instrumentation testing chamber that can be used by the army to determine a standard testing protocol for these bug repellent coded textiles.”

Buchanan said this will be a two-year project. It's pivotal because it has the potential to limit insect diseases like the zika virus.