Team:Paris Bettencourt/Project/Old People Smell

Teen Spirit

Another part of our project aims to neutralize natural unpleasant body odor in seniors. It has been found that with age, there is an increase in the amount of 2- nonenal on the surface of skin. This compound has a very specific strong odor perceived as iris, fat, and cucumber. This substance may be a reason of discomfort and social problems for people over the age of 40.

In this subproject, we want to evolve bacteria that are a natural part of the skin microbiome, namely C. striatum, to scavenge for the 2-nonenal. We will sequence the bacterial genome before, and after the directed evolution process, in order to see the mutations that occur. We will also observe the fitness of the 2-nonenal consuming bacteria in comparison to the wild-type ones, especially in seeing how they survive in a culture of other wild-type skin bacteria.