Received “2023 Encouragement Award of Japan Association on Odor Environment” for study on analysis of human olfactory receptor responses to complex odors.

Most of the odors that humans perceive daily are complex odors. For example, more than several hundred odor molecules have been found in coffee, which are collectively known as coffee flavor. In order to understand how humans perceive these complex odors, we took the approach of using human olfactory receptors to elucidate the mechanism. These results strongly suggested that the human olfactory receptor response pattern in complex odors is not only linear summation but also is affected by response enhancement and suppression.

This study was recognized by Japan Association on Odor Environment as “a contribution to academic study to elucidate the function of olfactory receptors,” and received the 2023 Encouragement Award.
The related study has been published in Bioscience, Biotechnology & Biochemistry and Fragrance Journal.

・Yasunaga M, Takai E et al.: Effects of 3-octen-2-one on human olfactory receptor responses to vanilla flavor. Biosci. Biotechnol. Biochem., 86, 1562-1569 (2022)
https://academic.oup.com/bbb/article-abstract/86/11/1562/6693932?redirectedFrom=fulltext

・Yasunaga M, Takai E et al.: Study on odor interactions by human olfactory receptor responses. Fragrance Journal,51, 51-57 (2023)
https://www.fragrance-j.co.jp/book/b632170.html