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This Synthetic Biology Company Is Bringing Royal Fragrances To The Masses

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When the young Marie Antoinette arrived at Versailles at the age of 14, the Austrian-born queen did not experience the refined version of the palace that we see today. In eighteenth-century France, sewage systems had not been developed yet, and despite being occupied by the nobility, the palace smelled as bad as any other European city of that period.

To appease the sensibilities of the teenage queen, Marie Antoinette’s perfumer Jean-Louis Fargeon created a perfume composition that she wore day and night. Inspired by the fragrant gardens of Petit Trianon, the scent featured the queen’s favorite flowers – jasmine, rose, orange blossom, and tuberose. A few years ago, the royal fragrance was recreated by a famous perfumer Francis Kurkdjian and released at a stunning price of $10,500 for an 8.5-ounce flask.

Perfume has historically been the indulgence of the rich. Many of the ingredients used by the nobility to scent the bodies and quarters are rare, hard to source, and require massive amounts of material to produce. For example, it takes 252,000 individual petals (or 8,000 flowers) to produce just 5 milliliters of rose oil. Delicate jasmine flowers are hand-picked in the early hours of dawn to capture their blooming scent. And orange blossoms can only be collected for about two weeks a year due to the short flowering cycle.

Today, perfumers do not have to go to such great lengths to get ingredients. Thanks to the advances in synthetic biology, many of the molecules traditionally sourced from plant or animal materials, can now be produced in engineered microbes using precision fermentation. The Massachusetts biotech Conagen is one of the companies revolutionizing the flavors and fragrances industry. They have been in the bio-based ingredients market since 2010 producing nutraceuticals, baby formula, and even the rare ancient Tyrian purple dye that used to be made from sea snails. And now they are making sustainable, affordable, and clean scents that turn heads.

Inspired by Nature

In the days of Marie Antoinette, only natural ingredients were used in perfumes, making them exuberantly expensive. The organic chemistry boom of the twentieth century has democratized fragrances and allowed most of us to smell as good (if not better) as the ill-fated queen. But despite the advances in organic synthesis, many natural scents remain difficult to mimic using chemistry alone. Essential oils have a more complex scent made up of many different molecules and are often preferred by perfumers and consumers for their “naturalness”.

That complexity has a downside, however, as some components can cause sensitivity and even allergic reactions. This is why the fragrance industry is heavily regulated, allowing certain natural ingredients to only be used in very low concentrations and others not at all. This limits the palette of perfumers who want to create compositions that have the power to uplift and transport, imprint memories, and bring captivating stories to life but are limited by practical considerations, such as price, availability of ingredients, and strict regulations.

Conagen has recognized this huge industry problem and has been working to develop clean, sustainable, and cost-effective natural fragrance ingredients using the power of synthetic biology. With the help of DNA sequencing, gene editing, and precision fermentation, scientists at Conagen are recreating the coveted ingredients from rare plants and animals in lab-grown yeast. They are working in partnership with Sensegen, the Flavor & Fragrance division of Blue California, to identify priorities based on areas of consumer demand and tune the quality, purity, and price of their ingredients.

When Conagen asked the scent creators at Sensegen what their greatest wish was, the unanimous answer was a sustainable, cruelty-free musk:

“We said we needed a musk, and four weeks later, we got a sample,” recalls Angelique Burke, Sensegen’s VP of Fragrance and Senior Perfumer. The fragrance experts were impressed by Conagen’s speed but wanted to push the synthetic biologists further: “It kind of smells musky but we are not there yet.” They send the scientists back to the labs, and in another two weeks they came back with a second sample that completely wowed Sensegen: “We said, wow, this is amazing. Did you just do that in six weeks??”

One can say this is the kind of chemistry that more synthetic biology companies should strive for. The relationship works both ways: the creators at Sensegen use their trained noses to assess, provide feedback, and suggest areas for improvement, while the scientists at Conagen routinely surprise them with new molecules they had never smelled before: “They are such good chemists, they bring us samples of stuff that we've never smelled before, and it’s amazing,” says Burke.

Sensegen is redefining how flavors and fragrances for food, beverage, personal care, and cosmetics are created, with perfumers and flavorists working under one roof. Traditionally, flavorists and perfumers work in silos on completely separate projects. But Sensegen is dissolving the line between flavor and fragrance in formulation strategies, which no one else in the industry is doing. As a result, they are able to supply consumers with unique creations containing clean, natural, high-purity ingredients that are good for people and the planet.

The King of Flowers

Following the success of the clean musk, Conagen went on to develop methyl jasmonate, a fragrance ingredient that carries the ethereal scent of jasmine. In the perfumery world, jasmine is considered the king of flowers, and methyl jasmonate is at the heart of the scent, with its soft petal, almost tea-like characteristics. The industry today uses a chemically synthesized molecule called Hedione to add jasmine notes to perfumes. But methyl jasmonate – which is found in the jasmine plant itself – smells much closer to life than its synthetic cousin.

“It's easier for nature to make methyl jasmonate,” explains Burke. It is also a much stronger projection, which is why when jasmine is in bloom, it is hard to ignore it: “You smell it before you see it. A little goes a long way.”

So, when Conagen gave them a methyl jasmonate vial, the creators at Sensegen were beyond excited. Methyl jasmonate allows them to create natural, sustainable fragrances that evoke the scent of the gardens of Versailles on a warm summer night that enamored Marie Antoinette, without having to harvest millions of petals. And by the sound of it, more sustainable aromatic ingredients will be coming soon:

“What they do is magic – the way they can harness the power of nature to make [fragrance ingredients]. Every time I go there, I feel like I'm a kid in a candy store. It's so exciting,” says Burke.

Thank you to Katia Tarasava for additional research and reporting on this article. I’m the founder of SynBioBeta and some of the companies I write about, such as Conagen, are sponsors of the SynBioBeta conference and weekly digest.

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