Fri, October 10, 2008
The sweet smell of success.
Here at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, researchers have found a way to enhance the smell of flowers ten fold.
The team of scientists have managed to identify a master-gene, controlling both scent production and colour production in plants.
The discovery has enabled the team to bump up scent production in flowers under the leadership of Professor Vainstein.
SOUNDBITE: PROFESSOR Alexander Vainstein, Faculty of Agriculture, Hebrew University, saying: (English)
"We are talking about increasing the overall level of scent compounds that are produced by the flowers, in our case, and we are talking about increasing ten times the amounts that are produced in flowers."
The breakthrough could benefit the perfume industry and agriculture.
Improving scent production is useful to the general public that likes to buy fruits or flowers with a good scent
But it can also be very important for perfumery - vastly improving the cost effectiveness of their core ingredients.
Leading Israeli cosmetic manufacturer Penina Rosenblum was excited by the development.
SOUNDBITE: Penina Rosenblum, leading Israeli perfume and cosmetics manufacturer, saying: (Hebrew)
"There are (flower) extractions that cost anything up to 400 US Dollars, and this really pushes up the cost of the perfume. If they are able to extract a scent that will be much stronger, and instead of using 10% (in a perfume), they will need only 5% and receive the same quality, it will reduce the costs and perfumes will be better, cheaper, and more environmentally friendly because there will be less need to use chemicals, so this is a very good and important development in my opinion."
The Hebrew University says Israel is the Middle East's largest producer of flowers, with exports topping $200 million every year.
Their new discovery has already been patented.
Penny Tweedie, Reuters.
