HOW THE FRUIT FLY COULD HELP US SNIFF OUT DRUGS AND BOMBS
A fly's sense of smell
could be used in new technology to detect drugs and bombs, new University of
Sussex research has found.
Brain scientist
Professor Thomas Nowotny was surprised to find that the 'nose' of fruit flies
can identify odours from illicit drugs and explosive substances almost as
accurately as wine odour, which the insects are naturally attracted to because
it smells like their favourite food, fermenting fruit.
Published today (15
October 2014) in the journal Bioinspiration and Biomimetics,
the study brings scientists closer to developing electronic noses (e-noses)
that closely replicate the sensitive olfactory sense of animals.
The hope is that
such e-noses will be much more sensitive and much faster than the currently
commercially available e-noses that are typically based on metal-oxide sensors
and are very slow, compared to a biological nose.
Professor Nowotny,
Professor of Informatics at the University of Sussex, led the study alongside
researchers from Monash University and CSIRO in Australia. He said: "Dogs
can smell drugs and people have trained bees to detect explosives. Here we are
looking more for what it is in the nose -- which receptors -- that allows
animals to do this.
"In looking at
fruit flies, we have found that, contrary to our expectation, unfamiliar
odours, such as from explosives, were not only recognised but broadly
recognised with the same accuracy as odours more relevant to a fly's
behaviour."
Professor Nowotny
and his collaborators recorded how 20 different receptor neurons in fruit flies
responded to an ecologically relevant set of 36 chemicals related to wine (the
'wine set') and an ecologically irrelevant set of 35 chemicals related to
hazardous materials, such as those found in drugs, combustion products and the
headspace of explosives (the 'industrial set').
By monitoring the
'firing rate' of each neuron, they were able to assess which smells elicited the
strongest reactions from the flies. They then used a computer program to
simulate the part of the fly's brain used for recognition to show that the
receptor responses contained enough information to recognise odours.
Of the wine set, 29
out of the 36 compounds elicited clear excitatory responses in at least one
receptor neuron. They were surprised to find, however, that the flies also
responded to 21 out of the 35 substances related to drugs and explosives.
Professor Nowotny
adds: "The long-term goal of this research direction is to 'recreate'
animals' noses for technical applications. As well as the detection of
explosives, chemical weapons and drugs, there is a broad array of other
possible applications, such as measuring food quality, health (breath analysis),
environmental monitoring, and even geological monitoring (volcanoes) and
agriculture (detecting pests).
"And, of
course, the fly's success in identifying the 'wine set' might prove useful for
those in the winemaking industry.
"But it would
be quite difficult to recreate the entire nose; even adopting all sensors would
be too difficult. One may be able to do five or maybe 10, out of 43 in the
fruit fly or hundreds in the dog. So the question is, which 10 should we use
and would it work? In this paper we show that it could work with as little as
10 fruit fly receptors and we identify the most likely candidates to use."
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