SPOT-NOSED smell technology yields electronic nose.

A new approach for an ‘electronic nose’ has been developed by researchers in Spain, France and Italy; the project is called SPOT-NOSED.

This ‘biosensor’ (an electronic sensor based on biological detection) is unusual in how it’s made. The researchers used actual proteins used in rat noses, and used them to detect smells in an electronic device. How cool is that?

By placing a layer of proteins that constitute the olfactory receptors (the proteins used to detect scents) in animal noses, a system capable of detecting odorants at concentrations that would be imperceptible to humans is made.

Where do these proteins come from? Several hundred different proteins were genetically copied from rats and grown in yeast. Nanotechnology makes such an electronic nose feasible, even though the human nose uses 1,000 different proteins to allow the brain to recognise 10,000 different smells.

The next step is to recognize scents: it’s exciting to be able to create this detector, but it’s not of any use. Luckily, the project partners are now planning to continue their research and develop the instrumentation and software tools necessary for an electronic nose to recognise smells. This mimics the brain in animals.

As the coordinator of the SPOT-NOSED project, Josep Samitier notes, "The potential uses of smell technology are endless."

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