Luca Turin on Scent

On Tuesday we watched and discussed Luca Turin's TED talk on scent. We were assigned 3 questions to answer following the video. Below is the link to the video and my response.


http://www.ted.com/talks/luca_turin_on_the_science_of_scent.html

Turin’s TED Talk on Scent Response

1) How does Turin’s work on the scent, compound structure, and vibrations relate to other approaches we’ve learned about for classifying chemicals?

His work relates to the way in which plant metabolites are classified. Plant metabolites are classified by their chemical structure and by their effect on humans. Perhaps the vibrations of these plant chemicals could be another way to classify them. I think it would be very interesting for a chemist to compare plant compounds with similar vibrations and see if they have similar effects on humans or see if they are classified in the same chemical category. For example it would be fascinating if two polyphenols such as curcumin and gingerol had similar vibrations. Perhaps two different chemicals that react on the same receptors would have similar vibrations. It makes me wonder if maybe the way in which our receptors are identifying the chemical interactions is not just by which receptor the compound binds to, but by how the vibrations of the chemical affect the receptor.

2) Could this work for drug discovery?  (Provide specific evidence and examples to support your position.)

I believe this could certainly work for drug discovery. It has in Turin’s work, helped identify a new chemical for perfume out of another known chemical (tonkene from coumarin.) I could only imagine what might be able to be discovered from comparing vibrations of medicinal compounds. In theory, I think that a chemical compound capable of preventing disease could be discovered from another compound with similar vibrations. If a scientist were able to detect the vibration of say ergotamine, perhaps they would be able to find another compound that could also act as a vasoconstrictor, but have less harmful side affects. This worked with the creation of tonkene, which lacked the carcinogenic properties of coumarin.

3) Conclude with another approach to drug discovery along these lines or in a different direction. (Consider chemical, botanical, biological, ecological, cultural.)

If the vibration of chemicals shows a correlation with similar health benefits, I think a vibrational approach to drug discovery could be entirely beneficial. What Turin has discovered for perfumes may entirely change the way in which chemists discover new smells. Going through sheets and sheets of compounds and identifying similar structures will no longer be needed. If applied to drug discovery, it could greatly decrease the time spent on drug discovery. There would be know need for random searches or even targeted searches. Ideally chemists could just synthesize plant chemicals with similar vibrations to known medicinal chemicals and create pharmaceuticals out of these newly synthesized compounds.