Also, shampoos don't kill lice eggs, so repeated treatments are needed. Some doctors prescribe a dangerous chemical that has been known to send some children into comas, he said. An effective alternative is to make children shave their heads, but kids resist that.

An ideal cure would require one treatment, not allowing lice to evolve into super-bugs capable of resisting the treatment, and killing both eggs and adult lice. The university group came up with such a treatment, he said.

Clayton said he could not provide too many details because of constraints by technology transfer people, who are apparently concerned about preserving the technique until it is fully patented. "We're trying to commercialize it by a year from now," he said. "We have a provisional patent application in."

The new machine uses an application of heat and a special way to dry out the infestation. It can take about 30 seconds, curing the child of lice, and produces less heat than a hair blower.

But an ordinary hair dryer "doesn't have the right volume of hot air" to kill lice eggs near the base of hair folliculus, he said.

The "Louse Buster" won't be for home use. Costing several hundred dollars, it would be for schools, clinics and other institutional settings. PTAs and charitable organizations could pay for the equipment, and actual application cost per child would be small.

The team has been testing the efficiency of the treatment. "The head louse control program is run by an army of undergrads," he said.

Every year since treatments started in 2001, the group has increased the number of children it treats. Now it is up to about 300 families.

Soon, Clayton predicted, "we'll be able to blow our competition away."

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E-mail: bau@desnews.com