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.