Virginia Tech researchers conduct proof-of-concept study on mosquito scent preferences. Using scented soaps, Virginia Tech researchers found that the smell of certain body soaps could make humans more or less attractive to mosquitoes.
People have been using products to alter their scent for generations. From soaps to perfumes, people gravitate to floral and fruity smells.
Whether we think these smells are good or bad is of little consequence to mosquitoes, transmitters of diseases that kill hundreds of thousands of people each year. Additionally, mosquitoes rely on plant nectar to get some sugars needed to sustain their metabolism in addition to needing nutrients in the blood to produce eggs.
And humans with nutrients and a floral scent? That’s two strikes.
Despite these scents being right under humans’ noses, the impact of soap smell on mosquito preference was largely ignored until Virginia Tech researchers in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences asked the question.
They found that certain soaps could make people more or less attractive to mosquitoes.
“Just by changing soap scents, someone who already attracts mosquitoes at a higher-than-average rate could further amplify or decrease that attraction,” said Clément Vinauger, assistant professor of biochemistry and co-principal investigator on the proof-of-concept study with collaborator Chloé Lahondère, also assistant professor of biochemistry.
The research on mosquito soap interactions was published May 10 in iScience and was funded in part by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture.