are you a mosquito net? If you don’t get bitten unnecessarily every summer, chances are that someone around you gets bitten too. Some people are more attractive to pests than others.
The reason is probably your smell. Mosquitoes rely on their sense of smell to locate their targets, and are drawn to specific odors that the human body naturally produces. It may be a little more appealing to some, but the unfortunate truth is that we all smell like good food to mosquitoes. You can hide yourself for a while using something like bug spray. Deet or handle clothes Permethrin. But if you want lasting protection, you’ll need to add one more step to your routine, and not everyone has the time or money to do it.
But good news is on the horizon. DSM-Firmenich is working to make repelling mosquitoes as easy as washing in the morning.
I actually visited dsm-firmenich’s lab in Geneva in 2016 to see their innovative efforts to improve hygiene for the world’s poorest people by reducing toilet odors. The nutrition, beauty and wellness company is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of flavors and fragrances. Most of their products are used to make food taste better and household products smell more appealing, but they also have a history of using their scent expertise to fight disease transmission. . Their latest efforts focus on stopping mosquitoes, as mosquito-borne diseases kill hundreds of thousands of people each year, most of them children in low-income countries.
The team’s goal is simple. It’s about incorporating scents into everyday items that keep mosquitoes away. After extensive research into the most frequently used household products in areas where mosquito-borne diseases are prevalent, we have decided to focus primarily on soap bars and laundry detergent powders. (They are also considering other products, such as body lotions and body creams.) These products already contain fragrance, but what if that fragrance could also help repel mosquitoes?
The idea is to get an extra layer of protective light without adding another step to your daily routine or buying a new product. At dsm-firmenich, no one thinks this kind of protection will be a silver bullet, but combined with other proven tools like mosquito nets, it can help people catch deadly diseases like malaria and dengue. We are hopeful that we will be able to significantly and sustainably reduce risk.
Making a soap bar that provides all-day mosquito protection is much more complicated than simply injecting ingredients. Citronella. Scientists in Geneva started by identifying a wide range of scented ingredients commonly used to keep pests away and make perfumes. Some of these ingredients are true repellents that emit odors that send mosquitoes flying in the opposite direction. Others block receptors in the mosquito’s brain that normally perceive mosquitoes and attract them to humans.
When combining ingredients to create new fragrances, the team knew they needed to keep a human-centered design approach in mind. The best candidates are not necessarily the most effective. It should also smell clean and fresh. I love the smell of cheeseburgers, but I wouldn’t want my laundry smelling like cheeseburgers every day, even if it protected me from mosquitoes.
To test the most promising odors, the researchers used a tool I’m familiar with. In the arm-in-cage test, a human puts the scent-covered arm under study into a sealed area filled with hundreds of scents. mosquito. Sensors track how the mosquito reacts and whether it bites your arm. The research team considered the test of two mosquito bites a failure.
Testing is still ongoing, but has already revealed some surprising results. One of the most effective scents by far is a scent like lily of the valley, a light floral scent often used in perfumery. It’s exactly the kind of fresh scent that people love to use in their soaps and laundry detergents. The research team’s early results indicate that some lily of the valley odors may be as effective as DEET when used in certain doses.
The next step is the hardest, and it remains to be seen if it will succeed. dsm-firmenich’s mosquito experts handed off the best scent candidates to the company’s product formulation experts and perfumers, who are now exploring ways to make scents last all day in consumer products.
That’s a difficult order. Fragrance ingredients are fragile and disappear quickly when you rub your hands or wash your clothes. (Think how quickly the freshly laundered smell disappears from your clothes.) Perfume that protects against mosquitoes all day is not a single scent, but the result of many innovations and complex combinations of different scents. may become. material. And, of course, the end result should be just enough scent to make people want to use it every day.
Still, I’m optimistic that the scent wizards of Geneva will find a way. The Gates Foundation supports their research in the hope that one day people in high-risk areas will be able to get more mosquito protection without spending extra effort or extra money. doing. If the world gave children and families more tools to protect themselves, we could save lives and eliminate the world’s deadliest animal bites.
