ChemSemBlog

The seminar that was held on November 12, 2009 was titled “Sandalwood: More than just a pleasant smell” by Jeffery A. Turk.  Jeffery Turk is the current assistant professor of chemistry at Alma College since 2006. He received B.A. at Cleveland State University and Ph.D. and MS at the University of Cincinnati. He has participated in a lot of research, especially in the area of organic chemistry. One interesting research that he has participated in was that he worked as a research scientist at International Flavors and Fragrances creating new aroma chemicals.

He began with talking about how we actually smell. Odor molecules bind to olfaction receptor cells, which contain 7TM protein. The signals due to the change in structure of receptor cells go to the olfactory bulb. In fact, these receptors can bind with multiple odorants as well as each odorant can bind to different receptors.

Then, he started to talk about the chemistry of smell using isomers. It was really interesting to see that smell is created due to different isomers. Furthermore, I learned that scientists can produce the same structure of oil that the natural oil has, also giving a nature identical odor. Since the natural oil is really expensive, by creating new molecular, they can save money for their research. He showed the structure of a well known smell and how they combine or synthesize to create a new smell.

The most interesting part in this presentation was that he actually brought samples of smell and let us experience it ourselves. The smells were different by addition of one molecule, javanol. I asked a question of how many kinds of perfume were produced with sandalwood and he answered that 66-70% of female perfumes were based on sandalwood.

Overall, I enjoyed this week’s presentation and want to thank Dr. Turk for letting us have a good time learning about fragrances. He was a very good speaker, and he was also very enthusiastic about his research and bringing samples of smell to help us not lose our attentions. If I can sum up this presentation in one sentence it would be that the various smells in perfumes are created with just a little change, by the addition of a small molecule.

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