Technologies changing the face of fragrance

This year's forum explored how new artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and machine learning are changing the face of the fragrance industry, with some of the biggest names in the fragrance, computing & biotechnology industries and academia presenting the latest research and developments that fragrance and AI has on their sectors. The event offered the opportunity for attendees to learn about the latest research, share knowledge and network.

Taking place at The Wellcome Collection in London, the event brought together leading experts in their fields from the University of Sussex, Switzerland’s Givaudan, Google Brain and Aromyx – both based in Mountain View, California. 

Dr Alex Wiltschko, senior research scientist from Google Brain, opened the forum. Wiltschko, who leads an olfaction-focused machine learning team at Google, gave an overview of AI and machine learning, and how both are used there. Wiltschko’s talk also discussed how machine learning can potentially impact fragrance chemistry.

Valérie Drobac, digital innovation manager from Givaudan (one of IFRA-UK’s members), talked about Givaudan’s latest intuitive and interactive system, ‘Carto’ – a new system that reinvents the way perfumers create fragrance. Launched in April of this year, ‘Carto’ is an AI-powered tool that brings science and technology together, to the benefit of perfumers who create Givaudan’s fragrances. The new system is designed to intelligently use Givaudan’s unique ingredients ‘Odour Value Map’ to maximise the olfactive performance in the final fragrance. 

Professor Thomas Nowotny, professor of informatics and director of research and knowledge exchange from the University of Sussex, helped delegates explore what we can learn from the olfactory system of insects.

Nowotny discussed the progress that’s being made in understanding how we smell, as our scientific understanding of olfaction (the sense of smell) is much behind vision and hearing. His talk also focused on natural odours that are typically mixtures of a large number of different chemical compounds and that such mixtures disperse into the environment in very complex structures – known as odour plumes. Using the example of insects – who’ve been recently found to have an olfactory perception much faster than previously thought – Nowotny described how research on the brains and olfactory systems of honeybees and fruit flies has opened up a new view on the complex nature of odour plumes and how they are perceived. This could in time lead to new discoveries on how humans, and now robots, can make sense of this complex range of mixtures.

Dr Josh Silverman, CEO of Aromyx, talked about the relationship between biotechnology and AI, in particular how new technologies are solving sensory problems. Over millennia, olfactory receptors have evolved to bind specific, yet similar, scent molecules in order to transmit vital information about whether a substance is pleasant, toxic, or anything in between. Aromyx’s bioengineering expertise uses olfactory receptors from humans (and other mammals) to develop a new way of selecting over a trillion odorant molecules in complex environments. Smell impacts everyone in every industry, including consumer products and industrial processes. It is known that the biochemical basis of an aroma has many uses across a variety of sectors, so Silverman shared how Aromyx has developed new technologies capable of solving diverse sensory problems across a range of industrial processes and products.

Dr Dmitrijs from the Sussex Computer Human (SCHI) Laboratory at the University of Sussex explored scent and self-driving cars and if it can make them safer. As though one might ignore a ‘service due’ light on the dashboard, most would probably stop immediately if they smelt something burning. His talk showcased some of the findings from his research, which provides evidence that the use of scents can make driving safer for humans, as well as in the context of self-driving cars – which Dmitrijs believes will make us more likely to keep using such systems in the future.

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