Team:Paris Bettencourt/Project

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SMELL THE ROSES

Here we present a genetic odor palette. It is built of BioBricks to express enzymes to produce volatile compounds with characteristic smells. We included smells with different tonalities to allow exploration of the "odor space" resulting from combinations of smelly units.

SOMETHING FISHY

Trimethylaminuria (TMAU) is a rare genetic disease causing a strong fish odor. Our project aims at engineering skin bacteria to degrade trimethylamine, the odor causing molecule, with the enzyme trimethylamine monooxygenase (TMM).

GOODY TWO SHOES

Isovaleric acid, the cheesy component of foot odor, is produced by B. subtilis through the leucine degradation pathway. We characterize B. subtilis mutant in this pathway, in vitro and in situ (on socks).

DON'T SWEAT IT

Armpit odor comes mainly from aminoacylase enzymes expressed in the genus Corynebacteria. This project is developing CRISPR technology to isolate natural bacterial mutants that lack these enzymes.

TEEN SPIRIT

2-nonenal is "old people smell," a component of sweat that increases with age. Here we isolate and characterize bacterial species that metabolize 2-nonenal and attenuate its characteristic odor.

ART

2-nonenal is a compound, with very specific strong odor perceived as iris, fat, and cucumber, which rate increases with age. Our goal is to study relationship between human skin bacteria and 2-nonenal.

BIOINFORMATICS

Here we mine human microbiome data to survey the frequency and diversity of genes related to body odor. The results suggest specific hotspots for odor gene variation.

All humans have a body odor, but sometimes it is unwanted. Our core projects modify the natural human skin flora to change body odors associated with the armpit, foot, fish odor syndrome, or old age.

Centre for Research and Interdisciplinarity (CRI)
Faculty of Medicine Cochin Port-Royal, South wing, 2nd floor
Paris Descartes University
24, rue du Faubourg Saint Jacques
75014 Paris, France
+33 1 44 41 25 22/25
paris-bettencourt-igem@googlegroups.com
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