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Team:Paris Bettencourt/Citizen Science
From 2014.igem.org
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Introduction
Body odor is a unique characteristic of each individual. Our body aroma is extremely complex and previous studies showed that this odor is influenced by many parameters, including lifestyle, diet, gender, and age. However, the relationship between these parameters and the body odor remain unclear. To assess this relationship, we chose a crowdsourcing approach, which has been shown to be successful in the past (ref: foldit) for big data scientific studies. In this process the general public can participate both by giving data and by analyzing them. While helping with the project, they learn about their own odor, and synthetic biology.
Aims
- To get Citizen Scientists involved: In our project, the general public can be involved by either giving samples and/or by analyzing them through an online game called “The Smell Game”. - To collect and analyze armpit smell samples. The volunteers place cotton pads under their armpits for a specified amount of time and fill a form with information about their lifestyle, diet, gender, and age. - Development of an online game to analyze the samples and learn more about the microbiome: the participants use our online platform to analyze samples that have been given by other participants. On this platform, people will assess their personal impression of the fragrance of the different samples. Give users the analysis of their personal odor provided by others participants. - Determine if emotions can affect body odor (i.e. how does watching a horror movie affect the viewer’s smell?)
Results
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Achievements
Overall we had more than 600 participations. The ages of the volunteers were from 5 to 65 years old. We had participation from all around the world (France, Poland, Colombia, Israel, UK). We hosted several smell events where citizen scientists were able to learn about and participate in the project. One of these was at the Cité des sciences (science museum in Paris) called “Parfums Microbiens”. During three days we held up a stand where anyone could come and participate to our study. We had posters and gave explanations about the relationship between our odor and our microbiome. During this event we collected hundred samples and analysis of smells.
+33 1 44 41 25 22/25
paris-bettencourt-igem@googlegroups.com 
