ChemSemBlog

This week’s seminar was Sandalwood: More than Just a Pleasant Smell.  The speaker was Jeffrey A. Turk, an organic chemist.  He did his undergraduate work at Cleveland State University and his graduate work (MS & PhD) at the University of Cincinnati.  After his postdoctoral work he went on to do some work for C.B. Research and Development (now Adesis, Inc.) developing small molecule drug, and also some work for International Flavors and Fragrances creating new aroma chemicals.  The speaker was good, the presentation was interesting and easy to follow.

One of the new things I learned in this seminar is that there are about 400 genes that code for olfactory receptors.  Another thing I learned is that natural sandalwood oil sells for $6000-$10000 per kg.  And for the olfactory treshold (OT), the higher the number the stronger the smell.

The other students seemed to be attentive during the seminar.  There were also a large number of questions at the end, and the speaker answered all of them well.

This seminar did encourage me to look into learning a little more about the topic.  However I don’t think I would be very interested in doing any research on it, and because of that, at this point doing graduate studies at the speakers school does not really interest me.

One of the reasons I think this seminar was interesting is because it was different, a large number of the seminars we have had this semester have had a lot to do with pharmaceutical, but this one have a good picture of some other chemistry career.  If I had to describe this seminar in one sentence it would be, “sandalwood and other key ingredients used in the perfume industry.”

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Our guest speaker for the chemistry seminar held on November 12 was Jeffrey Turk, who is currently an assistant professor of chemistry at Alma College. His research includes medicinal or drug-related chemistry and fragrance chemistry. The topic of his presentation was mainly Sandalwood aroma compounds. During the presentation, Dr. Turk did a great job at setting up the background and foundation about olfactory system and presenting his research project about fragrance molecules of Sandalwood, so that I could overall understand and easily follow what he talked about.

Most of all, because I had a chance to smell some compounds he brought, I was so excited. Interestingly some samples had very good odors, but others didn’t. In addition, one thing I was interested in was that the molecules which were stereoisomers each had different odors depending on their S or R configuration.

Also, I learned a lot about fragrance molecules from his talk. He said that odor molecules, less than 300g/mol, are generally detectable and volatile. To be detected, at first, the molecules should bind to olfactory receptors, such as G protein coupled receptor (GPCR). Surprisingly more than 400 genes are coded for different olfactory receptors.

I also learned that the fragrance molecules of Sandalwood for his research were synthesized via Allene-Claisen rearrangement. One of the significant goals of his research was to produce these aromatic compounds with atom-efficient reaction to reduce wastes. In the fragrance industry his research works were very important because he could synthesize fragrance molecules which were nature identical or similar with much less cost.

For my non-science friend, I would say that organic chemistry plays an important role in fragrance industry to synthesize compounds that smell good.

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Our presentation last Thursday was brought to us by Jeffery A Turk, assistant professor of Chemistry at Amherst College. His presentation was about Sandalwood and the need for making synthetic fragrance molecules for the benefit of saving on natural resources, expanding the palette for fragrance companies, and greater biodegradability, functionality, and sustainability of current molecules being used.  I liked Turk’s style of teaching; he used many different  media (black board, props, PowerPoint) to help us understand his presentation. He was very engaging, often asking questions and making jokes. But what I was most impressed about with his presentation was how well he knows his slides. Once or twice he would skip to the next slide without even looking and begin explaining what was on it!

Turk began his presentation with an overview of how smell works in our body. He thoroughly covered the works of the olfactory bulb and how we perceive what we smell through messages sent to the hypothalamus. I had never really sat down to think about how I smell, but it was very interesting to find out that it is a combination of functional groups like aldehydes, ketones, esters, etc. that our body is interpreting as a specific smell. Another concept that I learned was the Odor Threshold (OT). The OT is the smallest quantity of molecule needed to activate the receptor cells and thus relay smell to the brain. And finally, but certainly not the last thing I learned, I was fascinated by his short comment on a connection from the hypothalamus to the Limbic area of the brain signifying that you feel something when you smell!

The only questions I have are 1. With such a high demand for atom efficient reactions to create sandalwood, is there a high demand for chemists in this field? 2. In a society interested in multifunctionality, in what other areas of science and technology do you see fragrance chemistry affecting in the next 20 years,? and finally 3. Have you marketed any of your own fragrances to companies?

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This week’s speaker was Jeffery A. Turk, an organic chemist who previously worked as a research scientist at International Flavors and Fragrances creating new aroma and chemicals. He spoke of design, synthesis and evaluation of novel enzyme inhibitors and fragrance molecules. I found his presentation style understandable but also quick. Turk was able to explain his work well and he made his presentation come alive by bringing samples of some fragrances.

The first thing that was mentioned which was new to me, was the fact that there are about fifty million olfactory receptor cells, and seven -transmembrane G-protein coupled receptors. The olfactory molecules contact the top of the protein receptors, and the olfactory receptors are tuned to chemical functionality, not odor properties. So when we smell certain odors it is due to certain molecules binding to certain olfactory receptors.

Other interesting facts included were that four hundred genes could code for a single olfactory receptor. There is also a link to the hypothalamus, in which went one smells something there is a part of the brain that lights up known as the olfactory bulb. One can also determine from OT, olfactory trackers, the amount of the molecule needed so that it can be picked up by the olfactory receptor. Since most fragrances come from trees, Turk is working to find other bases such as sandalwood and other new ingredients for which a variety of fragrances can be made. Turk’s goal is to find the reaction in which there is high atom efficiency with little waste and maximum yields. Some reactions that were tried were done with claisen rearrangement. I found the presentation very informative and liked that I was able to test out some of the fragrances made such as Ambrox and Carvone. What I found interesting about Carvone was that it had R and S enantiomers smelling of cinnamon and spearmint.

Many students seemed to enjoy this presentation and were very involved. During the end, Turk answered many questions very well. Although the presentation was appealing, I wasn’t exactly encouraged to do a seminar on this topic, it would be a good project to research on though. I was neither encouraged or discouraged to attend the speaker’s school for graduate studies, but this presentation about how we smell and how some of these molecules used in fragrances were synthesized, made me look at different fragrances in a new way.

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This week’s seminar was done by Dr. Jeffery Turk, chemistry professor at  Alma College.  His presentation was about sandalwood and is aroma.  First, Dr. Turk spoke about olfaction, which is the sense of smell.  Odor molecules bind to receptor cells, located on the cilia inside the nose.  Odor molecules need to be volatile, that is, have a vapor pressure, and they need to be somewhat hydrophobic.  Odor molecules are very small, usually weighing less than 300 grams per mole.  Approximately 400 genes code for olfactory receptors.  The study of olfaction is complicated by the fact that an odorant can bind to multiple receptors, and receptors can accept more than one type of odorant.  The binding of odorants to receptors is based on functional groups.

Dr. Turk then went on to speak specifically about Sandalwood. Sandalwood is a hunted tree, and what is unique about this tree is that the oil from each tree respectively has a different aroma depending on the region of the world that it is located in.  Sandalwood trees are so valuable that companies place barbed wire and guards armed with machine guns around the trees, to protect them from thieves or armed tree harvesters.  After describing Sandalwood, Dr. Turk also talked about the fragrance industry and his prior work as a fragrance chemist, and how it has helped him with his current research. Through this information, I was able to learn more about the difference between natural oils, nature identical, and synthetic.

Overall, Dr. Turk did an impressive job of explaining a topic that most people take for granted every day, in a more in depth and interesting manner such that it brought to light new and valuable information I hadn’t previously know.  Dr. Turk’s style of presenting was very good because his humor made me interested in the information he was sharing.  In the future I hope to hear more seminar’s that are of the same quality as Dr. Turk.

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It was another fine day in chemistry seminar at Andrews University.  On Thursday November 12, 2009 Professor Jeffrey A. Turk spoke to the seminar class at Andrews University!  Professor Jeffery A. Turk came to Andrews from Alma college where he is currently the Assistant Professor of Chemistry.  He specializes in fragrance research, meaning he studies chemicals that give good smells and studies them to see how to create better ones.

Professor Turk completed his undergraduate studies at Cleveland State University and then his Graduate work at the University of Cincinnati.  Following graduate school Professor Turk went to Purdue University where he conducted his postdoctoral research with Professor Mark A Lipton.  Following his postdoctoral research Professor Turk worked at C.B. Research and Development (now Adesis, Inc.), here he developed small molecule drug intermediates, and he also worked as a research scientist at International Flavors and Fragrances creating new aroma chemicals.  After a very short stay in the chemical industry, Professor Turk joined Alma College in 2006.

Professor Jeffery Turk shared information with the group that most of the group knew but possibly had forgotten about.  It was nice to have a refresher about the location of our smell receptors which are also known as the Olfactory Bulbs.  One very interesting point that Professor Turk brought out was that the size of the molecule created to be smelled has to be greater then 300 g/mol.  He explained to the group that when creating a new type of molecule, one of the major things that you need to focus on is making sure it is big enough to be detectable and when it is detected it needs to be volatile so that it makes your senses go crazy for that particular scent.  Now of course when we smell something it is not just one molecule, but rather a combination of a lot of different molecules and the key to creating a good cologne is to find that specific combination that smells awesome and is desired by everyone.

Professor Turk gave a lot of cool information and used more than just chemistry to present his topic.  He brought samples of different scents and had the whole group smell each one.  It made the presentation very enjoyable because it created a direct interaction with the speaker.  He spoke very well and stayed within his time limits.  It was very easy to hear the speaker and understand him, he spoke loudly and enunciated his words well.  It was a very enjoyable lecture.

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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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The speaker for this week’s ChemSem was Jeffrey A. Turk from Alma College in central Michigan. He presented on the fragrance industry and the efforts being made to create new fragrances, while at the same time better understanding how the nose works, and how the brain interprets the chemical signals it receives.

The presentation was interesting and Dr. Turk did a good job of starting from basics in explaining the fragrance industry and the procurement of natural supplies. His focus was sandalwood oil which is very expensive. Most of what I learned in this seminar, however, related most directly to understanding of how the nose and brain interact in interpreting chemical smells. Apparently the nose is designed around the interpretation of functional groups on organic molecules. Furthermore, due in part to the mucous that protects the lining of the nasal passages, in order to smell something, the material needs to be hydrophobic, or else the mucous cannot solvate it.

Among the materials brought to demonstrate fragrances, were several vials which Dr. Turk used to give the audience a whiff of the differences one’s nose makes of various substances. One of the most interesting facts was the discussion of anosmia. Evidently, many people lack the ability to smell santolol, and furthermore, in some, once they smell it, for a time they cannot smell it again. Another sample Dr. Turk supplied was the smell from Ambergris which is specifically known for causing acute short term anosmia. This occured in me, in which I could smell it initially, but not upon a second attempt.

Overall, Dr. Turk did an impressive job of explaining something that most people take for granted every day in a more in depth and interesting manner such that it brought to light new and valuable material. The talk did not involve overly in depth reactions, but it did have a useful and engaging amount of chemistry such that the practical applications of more complex subjects (such as stereochemistry and Claisen rearrangements) was given usefulness in the broader scope of analytical and research chemistry.

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Our last guest speaker for this year, Jeffrey A. Turk works in odor chemistry a field of chemistry closely related to flavor chemistry. Before he entered into the world of fragrance chemistry however, he wanted to make drugs at a pharmaceutical company, describing the concept as “romantic.” Later he worked with scents at International Flavors and Fragrances (IFF), a company manufacturing and creating flavors and fragrances for a year and a half before he decided that he wanted to work with students. He has been at Alma College for four years now as Assistant Professor of Chemistry.

Initially Turk went over the olfactory sense before talking about the scents themselves. This was helpful since even as a science major, Foundations of Biology does not cover the mechanics and function of smell very in depth, so most of the knowledge I brought with me to this lecture was comprised from a Magic School Bus episode. One fact that caught my attention was that for us to smell something the molecule must be small, volatile and hydrophobic. ‘Hydrophobic’ especially raised interest, because I had never really thought about how odor receptors work. I guess this is why water does not have a strong scent. Some of the most valued fragrances have surprising origins. Musk comes from the anal glands of Tibetan deer and ambergris, which exudes a deep sweet odor, is from hardened whale poop. Sandalwood, the ingredient used in many perfumes, has a less exotic origin. Harvested from trees of the same name, sandalwood oil has varying scent according to the region that the tree grew in. Most of fragrance chemistry attempts to recreate the scents found in nature. The syntheses Turk showed to us were aldol chemistry or deviations of it. Different chemists follow different regimens to imitate these natural odors. Some make educated guesses and try to plan out a synthesis while others go about it in more haphazard manner.

Last year in Dr. Murray’s organic chemistry class, the independent research project that my partner and I worked on was the synthesis of raspberry ketones. While that project was more in the realm of flavor chemistry, as expected flavor and fragrance chemistry are closely related. So the personal experience I had brought an added interest to this particular seminar. Also, Turk passed around samples of various fragrances featured in his presentation such as sandalwood and ambergris which was exciting. After all the sniffing we did, Turk gave us a tip to clear our loaded odor receptors by sniffing the inside of our elbows. The soap used to wash the clothes and skin cleanses the nose making the practice equivalent to clearing the palette with lemon sorbet, except much more amusing.

Laymen’s Summary of the Seminar: You should know that almost everything around you is manufactured and synthesized. Even that piney, lemony smell from Wal-Mart. People like Dr. Turk figure out how to make great scents that go into perfumes and other consumer items.

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Professor Jeffrey A. Turk’s presentation on Thursday, November 12 was understandable, easy to follow, and interesting. I thought it was interesting for most of us, because colognes and perfumes are what many of us use, and we were able to learn about them chemically. Also, it was fun for us to smell some fragrances the presenter brought for us to smell. He is an assistant professor of chemistry at Alma College, and I believe he is looking forward to developing more efficient ways to synthesize a natural identical sandalwood oil. If he is successful, his synthesis method will save much more money that is used in synthesizing the oil.

I learned about many biological, biochemical, and organic chemical information that are related to smell and fragrances. I learned that a molecule must be volatile, small, and relatively hydrophobic in order for one to smell it. I also learned that each enantiomer of the same molecule binds differently to the olfactory receptors and different amounts of enantiomers are needed in order to detect the smell. As much as enantiomers produce different effects on human as drugs, stereochemistry was also important in smell. Sandalwood was really valuable and expensive, because of the oil it produces. Sandalwood oil is used as a fragrance ingredient, and steam distillation of the wood was needed to take the oil from it.

Three questions I had in mind were 1) How much oil is produced from one sandalwood tree?, 2) If the natural oil and natural identical oil are the same in molecular level, why is the price of those two different?, and 3) How long does it take to synthesize sandalwood oil?

I would describe this presentation to my friend as this: “Interesting presentation by Professor Turk was about how we smell and how fragrances are made.

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The guest speaker for this week’s Seminar in Chemistry was Jefferey A. Turk. He has worked as a fragrance maker. Now, he is a professor at Alma College, researching about synthesizing molecules which smell like odors of nature. Overall, he spoke clearly and slowly, and explained contents easily.

He started the seminar introducing us to the mechanism of how we smell. He said that, to be a fragrance molecule, it needs to be volatile, less than three hundred grams per mole and hydrophobic. If the molecule is non-volatile and hydrophilic, it would not reach the olfactory receptor and we cannot smell it. He, also, said that stereochemistry is important in producing fragrance. If the molecule has S conformation, it would have different smells from R conformation molecules.

The benefit of manufacturing artificial smells are, that we can save natural resource and make fragrance cheaper than using real natural oil. The price of synthetic compounds is one thousand times cheaper than the price of natural oil. The interesting thing was that the main materials for popular perfume to people are from excrement of animals. For an example, musk is from feces of deer.

Throughout the presentation, I was wondering whether the organic compound has any effects on human body. He also said that there is an organization which is responsible for regulating and supervising the safety of fragrance.

It is very interesting to know about applications of organic chemistry, and behind the story of synthesizing fragrance. I would tell my friends that the seminar was about making various smells, or fragrance, by mixing chemical compounds.

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I have to say that this week’s lecture was my favorite out of all the lectures that the guest speakers gave this semester. The reason that I found it most interesting was probably because the topic was the chemistry of perfuming and how scents are made. I think that the aspect of chemistry that I love the most is the smells that come from all the reactions, whether they are good or bad smelling.

One thing that I learned from this lecture was that in order to have a smell, molecules must have a vapor pressure and they also must be hydrophobic in order to interact with smell receptors in the nose. Something that I would like to know more about would be why Indian Sandalwood trees are practically the only sought after sandalwood trees for their oils, and why no one uses Carene Sandalwoods for their oils. Seems like there wouldn’t be much of a difference between the two of them, but then again I’m no expert.

Another thing that I found interesting about the lecture was that at one point the speaker mentioned that one reaction needs to be performed at higher temperatures for a period of time in order to reach completion. Then he said that they got an idea and put the chemicals in a microwave oven for a few minutes, and the reaction proceeded better than they had achieved using the old method.

In explaining what this lecture was about to one of my non-science friends, I would say that it was about the chemistry behind making perfumes and colognes. I think that this would have to be the easiest out of all the lectures to describe.

As for the speaker, Dr. Jeffery A. Turk is Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Alma College. He started out working in the pharmaceutical industry and then moved on to become a perfume chemist. Afterwards he decided to become a teacher and has been teaching ever since. His speaking style is smooth and very understandable, and he speaks as if he is very into what the topic is about. Perhaps my favorite part of the lecture was when he passed around the papers with the different scents on them.

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The speaker this past Thursday was Jeffrey A. Turk, Ph.D, and he gave an interesting presentation on fragrances. This was a new and unique area of chemistry for me, and it proved to be an engaging presentation. What added a lot to the entertainment factor of this presentation was definitely the smell samples that he handed out. It really added a hands on experience that served to enhance his already interesting presentation.

What made the topic so interesting was because of the familiarity with smells  as something that we all experience, but never really think about. This presentation gave us an opportunity to learn more about the process of smelling, which seemed to have a lot of unknown things about how it works, especially in regard to the receptor. For instance, we learned that the receptor has seven helices, that their are 400 kinds of receptors, and that single receptor can perceive multiple odors. It was interesting to learn more about the odor threshold and how that factors in to prices for industry.

Turk also talked a lot about the fragrance industry because of his prior work, and how it has helped him with his research. We were able to learn more about the difference between natural oils, nature identical, and synthetic.

Overall I would say that Turk was able to give a fascinating presentation  and that he was able to keep us at the edge of our seats. We were able to learn more about fragrances as well as his work with sandalwood. In addition he was able to provide us with good answers to the several questions we had for him.

If I were to describe this presentation to my non-science friend, i would say that it was about discovering new ways to synthesize smells and trying to make more efficient ways to produce them.

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This week’s presenter was Jeffery Turk from Alma College.  His presentation revolved around sandalwood.  First, Turk gave a basic introduction to olfaction, the sense of smell.  Odor molecules bind to receptor cells, located on the cilia inside the nose.  Odor molecules need to be volatile, that is, have a vapor pressure, and they need to be relatively hydrophobic.  Odor molecules are small, usually weighing less than 300 grams per mole.  Approximately 400 genes code for olfactory receptors.  The study of olfaction is complicated by the fact that an odorant can bind to multiple receptors, and receptors can accept more than one type of odorant.  The binding of odorants to receptors is based on functional groups.

After this introduction, Turk went on to talk about sandalwood itself.  Sandalwood is a hunted tree, and odors are specific to each species of the tree.  Therefore, sandalwood oils will have different aromas depending on the region they are harvested from.  Sandalwood trees are so precious that companies place barbed wire and guards armed with machine guns around the trees.  I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen a picture.  The sandalwood molecules themselves are made of carbon chains terminated by alcohols.  A bulky hydrophobic group is placed somewhere on the molecule.  A sandalwood molecule can cause temporary loss of smell.  Aldol chemistry is used to make sandalwood oils from campholenic aldehydes.  Fragrance chemistry involves stereoselective and catalytic techniques.  However, large scale reactions are not supported due to the expensive nature of fragrance chemistry.

This presentation was very interesting, and not just because of the chemistry.  Turk passed around several sample fragrances, most of them being very strong smelling.  Javenol, in particular, had an incredibly strong smell.  Also, the audience got to smell ambergris, which was made from whale crap.  This was one of the most interesting things I learned.  It was also eye-opening to learn that fragrance companies heavily guarded their sandalwood trees with guards armed with machine guns.  I would like to know if anyone has ever been shot trying to climb a sandalwood tree.  Finally, Turk told us that if we wanted to clear our nasal passages, we could smell our elbows.  It sounds weird, but it just might work.  To sum up, this presentation was about the fragrance chemistry of sandalwood, and other aspects of fragrance chemistry.

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Dr. Jeffrey Turk came to talk to us today from Alma College about “Sandalwood: More than just a pleasant smell”. He started out talking about the sense of smell and how we smell, with molecules coming in through the nose and landing on the olfaction receptor cells which contain 7 TM protein coupled receptors. The structure of these receptors changes, leading to changes with the cell, and the signal goes from these receptor cells to the olfactory bulb to the olfaction cortex. The amazing thing about all of this is that there is not a receptor for each type of cell, but these receptors can bind multiple odorants, and each odorant can bind to many different receptors, giving a wide variety of options for these receptors to sense smell.

He then moved into the chemistry of all of this, showing us how different isomers can give different smells. It is really interesting how the research is done for odors and creating new smells. There is natural oil that comes from nature, or these chemists can take the structure of that oil and create the same structure in the lab, leading to a nature identical smell. Or they can take what they know of different molecular groups and how they are known to smell, and they can create new smell combinations, or synthetic.

Dr. Turk brought in many samples of smell with him, letting us smell the differences that the addition of molecules like javanol will do to the final smell of a perfume. One of the really interesting things we got to smell was ambergris, which comes from hardened whale poop that washes up on the shore and hardens in the sun. He was a very good speaker, keeping our attention with these samples to smell and having many illustrations on PowerPoint for us to follow.

If I was going to explain this to a non-chemistry student I would say that Dr. Turk talked about the chemistry involved with the things we smell, and the research that goes into creating new smells.

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Unbelievably, this is the last non-student seminar presentation of the semester. There have been many great speakers thus far, some who have stirred us to think deeper about chemistry and some who have stirred up other feelings. This week we had a lot of fun hearing about and smelling chemistry. Dr. Jeffrey A. Turk is a chemist working as a faculty at Alma College in Alma, MI. His specialty is making odorous chemicals to be used in perfumes and colognes.

Dr. Turk introduced us primarily to the sandalwood odor, a natural fragrance acquired from the oils of a certain species of sandalwood tree. It would obviously be ludicrous to utilize nothing but the natural oils for making perfumes, as there would be a huge deficiency (extinction) of sandalwood trees in India. This is where chemistry comes in. Dr. Turk showed a big list of all the various types of volatile alcohols present in sandalwood oils that contribute to the characteristic odor of the sandalwood tree. One of his primary concerns is to maintain a high level of atom efficiency, much like Dr. Yamamoto. He claims that the most economic method to achieve synthesis of multiple complex molecules is by the familiar method of Claisen Rearrangement. This way, there are no atoms lost in the transformation of one chemical species into another.

Although Dr. Turk is familiar with the best way to go about concocting a fragrance that will be appealing, there is still a mighty amount of guesswork involved. Although all the sandalwood derivatives smell very similar to each other, mixing and creating new species will always have uncertainty. Dr. Turk did an outstanding job of engaging the students and of making the material interesting and fun. I enjoyed the presentation as did all others. Dr. Turk gets a 9.5/10 for chemistry content, 9.5/10 for professionalism and 10/10 for student engagement. Very good!

To the layperson, this seminar was all about the chemistry behind common perfumes.

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Chemistry Seminar on November 12, 2009 incorporated a sense we do not usually use in seminar, our sense of smell. I would love to say we used our sense of taste.  However, in the chemistry world eating lab materials is generally frowned upon. The presentation entitled “Sandalwood: More than just a pleasant smell” was given by Jeffrey A. Turk. Dr. Turk, a professor at Alma College who focuses on fragrance research.

Dr. Turk began by explaining how we smell. There are cilia cells in the nose that are coated in olfactory receptor cells. These receptor cells will respond to multiple odorants and send a signal to the olfactory bulb in the brain. The receptors do not recognize the properties of a molecule but the functionality. The olfactory bulb is linked to the hypothalamus which leads to smells linked to memory. Molecules involved in scent have an “ot”, an odor threshold. The smaller the odor threshold number is the stronger the smell. Different enantiomers will have different thresholds and even different smells. For example, Dr. Turk let us smell both the (S)-configuration of carvone, which smelled like caraway, and the (R)-configuration of carvone, which smelled like spearmint.

Dr. Turk specifically is working to use atom efficient reactions, like the Claisen rearrangement, to make synthetic fragrances with little waste. He works with synthesized molecules that produce the smell of sandalwood like Firsantol.

A side note of the presentation included smelling Ambrox which is a component of ambergris, or dried up whale poop. I’m not being sarcastic when I say that it smelled really good. This presentation was very interesting. I loved the fact that we actually got to smell the molecules we saw. Dr. Turk did an excellent job of introducing us to the topic of fragrance chemistry.

In telling my family or friends about this seminar I would say we learned about how organic molecules influence fragrance.

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