INNOVATE RINSE REPEAT

Procter & Gamble, age 182, is coming after eco-friendly soap sellers, organic tampon makers, and other upstarts of the digital era

- Tiffany Kary

It’s a classic setup: A psycho ology grad, a microbiologist, and a chemical engineer walk into a room buzzing with flies. The psych grad is versed in feminine-hygiene products. The microbiologist has a side business in eco-friendly yards. The chemical engineer specializes in wet wipes. The room, OK, it’s not a bar, but the University of Cincinnati’s Benoit Laboratory has its charms, too.

The three specialists peer over the shoulder of Carlie Perretta, a physiology major, as she picks up a pooter, a glass tube attached to a translucent yellow hose. She puts one end in her mouth and the other in a tent filled with houseflies (Musca domestica), then starts to suck. Her short sips gently aspirate the flies into the tube. She says the air tastes a bit like it smells—baby formula gone bad, thanks to the low-fat milk powder the flies are fed. A filter stops the bugs from entering her mouth. Once Perretta has collected about 20 specimens, she carries the pooter across the lab to a tent, where she’ll release the flies to choose between two traps emitting different wavelengths of light.

The traps are prototypes for a line of non-called Zevo, the most toxic insect-killing products developed a brand to come out of P&G Ventures, an arm of Procter & Gamble Co. The three specialists are P&G employees, working with the university’s entomology department. Zevo includes sprays for flies, wasps, and cockroaches, as well as traps for mosquitoes, moths, and gnats. The team obsesses over ways of outwitting their opponents. Wasps’ brains grow as they work on more complex projects. Cockroaches can memorize every square inch of a room. Defeat these foes, and Ventures just might have its first hit.