Luca Turin
This poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libelous. )Find sources: "Luca Turin" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (May 2013) |
Luca Turin | |
---|---|
Born | |
Occupation | biophysicist |
Known for | Vibration theory of olfaction |
Luca Turin (born 20 November 1953) is a
Early life and education
Turin was born in
Career
After leaving the CNRS, Turin first held a visiting research position at the National Institutes of Health in North Carolina[4] before moving back to London, where he became a lecturer in biophysics at University College London. In 2001 Turin was hired as CTO of start-up company Flexitral, based in Chantilly, Virginia, to pursue rational odorant design based on his theories. In April 2010 he described this role in the past tense,[5] and the company's domain name appears to have been surrendered.[6]
In 2010, Turin was based at
Vibration theory of olfaction
A major prediction of Turin's vibration theory of olfaction is the isotope effect: that the normal and deuterated versions of a compound should smell different due to unique vibration frequencies, despite having the same shape. A 2001 study by Haffenden et al. showed humans able to distinguish benzaldehyde from its deuterated version.[10]
However, experimental tests published in Nature Neuroscience in 2004 by Keller and Vosshall failed to support this prediction, with human subjects unable to distinguish acetophenone and its deuterated counterpart.[11] The study was accompanied by an editorial, which considered the work of Keller and Vosshall to be "refutation of a theory that, while provocative, has almost no credence in scientific circles." It continued, "The only reason for the authors to do the study, or for Nature Neuroscience to publish it, is the extraordinary -- and inappropriate -- degree of publicity that the theory has received from uncritical journalists."[12] The journal also published a review of The Emperor of Scent, calling Chandler Burr's book about Turin and his theory "giddy and overwrought."[13] However, tests with animals have shown fish and insects able to distinguish isotopes by smell.[14][15] Biophysical simulations published in Physical Review Letters in 2007 suggest that Turin's proposal is viable from a physics standpoint.[16]
The vibration theory received possible support from a 2004 paper published in the journal Organic Biomolecular Chemistry by Takane and Mitchell, which shows that odor descriptions in the olfaction literature correlate more strongly with vibrational frequency than with molecular shape.[17]
In 2011, Turin and colleagues published a paper in
Two years later, in 2013, Turin and colleagues published a study in
In response to Turin's 2013 paper, involving deuterated and undeuterated
Biological electronics
Turin filed one of the first patents for a semiconductor device made with protein.[28] Turin's recent work focuses on the relevance of his olfaction theory to more general mechanisms of G-protein coupled receptor activation. In an article[29] in Inference Review, he proposed that the electronic mechanism was a special case of a more general involvement of electron currents in GPCRs. A 2019 preprint[30] argues that the highest-resolution x-ray diffraction structure of rhodopsin,[31] considered the ancestor of all GPCRs, contains the elements of an electronic circuit. He has also reported detection of non-equilibrium electron spins in Drosophila by their radiofrequency emissions,[32] though this is described as a "work in progress".
Role in the case of Henri Korn
In 1988, Turin began work at the lab led by neuroscience researcher Henri Korn at the Pasteur Institute. There, Turin and his colleague Nicole Ropert reported to their superiors that they believed some of Korn's research on neurotransmitters was based on fabricated results.[33] After Turin made a formal request that the CNRS investigate the allegations, he was told to find work outside France; Ropert was also asked to leave.[34]
Korn was awarded the prestigious Richard Lounsbery Award in 1992 and became a member of the National Academy of Sciences in the U.S. and the French Academy of Sciences.[35] Then in 2007, re-analysis of Korn's data by Jacques Ninio in the Journal of Neurophysiology showed serious anomalies that suggested the results were indeed fabricated.[33]
Publications
Turin is the author of the book The Secret of Scent (2006), which details the history and science of his theory of olfaction; an acclaimed critical guide to perfume in French, Parfums: Le Guide, with two editions in 1992 and 1994; and is co-author of the English-language books Perfumes: The A-Z Guide (2008) and The Little Book of Perfumes (2011). He is also the subject of the 2002 book The Emperor of Scent by Chandler Burr[4] and the 1995 BBC Horizons documentary "A Code in the Nose."
Since 2003, Turin has also written a regular column on perfume, "Duftnote," for NZZ Folio, the German-language monthly magazine of Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung. The column is also published in English on the magazine's website.[36] The column ended in 2014. The collected columns are published as a book[37]
Awards and honors
In 2001 and 2004, Turin won the Prix Jasmin, the highest honor for perfume writing in France. He won the Jasmine Prize in the UK in 2009.[38]
Bibliography
- Turin, Luca (1992). Parfums. Le guide (french). ISBN 978-2-86665-163-3.
- Turin, Luca (2006). The Secret of Scent: Adventures in Perfume and the Science of Smell. New York: Ecco. ISBN 978-0-06-113383-1.
- Turin, Luca; Tania Sanchez (2008). Perfumes: The Guide - Hardcover. Viking. ISBN 978-0-670-01865-9.
- Turin, Luca; Tania Sanchez (2009). Perfumes: The A-Z Guide - Paperback (new reviews(~450) and new Top 10 lists). Penguin. ISBN 978-0-143-11501-4.
- Turin, Luca; Tania Sanchez (2011). The Little Book of Perfumes: The 100 classics. Profile Books. ISBN 978-1846685194.
- Turin, Luca (2015). Folio Columns 2003-2014. CreateSpace. ISBN 978-1517755263.
- Turin, Luca; Tania Sanchez (2018). Perfumes: The Guide 2018 - Paperback. Perfüümista OÜ. ISBN 978-9949885534.
- Turin, Luca (2019). Perfumes: Parfums Le guide 1994 (english). Perfüümista OÜ. ISBN 978-9949015252.
- Turin, Luca; Tania Sanchez (2019). Perfumes: The A-Z Guide - Paperback (reissued). Perfüümista OÜ. ISBN 978-9949889679.
References
- .
- ^ "Adela Turin".
- ^ artandolfactionawards.com Luca Turin Archived 2016-02-07 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ ISBN 978-0-375-50797-7.
- ^ a b Nina Sinatra, The science of smell, The Tech, MIT, 23 April 2010
- ^ "Welcome to flexitral.com". GoDaddy. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
This Web page is parked for FREE, courtesy of GoDaddy.com.
- ^ Institute of Theoretical Physics Luca Turin
- ^ "Stavros Niarchos Researchers".
- ^ "Neuroscience". Archived from the original on 7 December 2015. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
- .
- S2CID 1073550.
- PMID 15048113.
- .
- ISBN 9780444820136.
- S2CID 5203445.
- S2CID 1519986.
- PMID 15534702.
- .
- PMID 21321219.
- ^ PMID 23372854.
- ^ Palmer, Jason. "Quantum biology: Do weird physics effects abound in nature?". BBC. Retrieved 23 May 2013.
- ^ PMID 25901328.
- PMID 26015552.
- ^ Everts S (2015). "Receptor Research Reignites A Smelly Debate". Chemical & Engineering News. 93 (18): 29–30.
- PMID 26045494.
- PMID 26045493.
- PMID 30343564.
- ^ [1], "Semiconductor structure using protein as its active element", issued 1991-12-04
- . Retrieved 17 August 2019.
- doi:10.1101/650531.
- PMID 15327956.
- arXiv:1907.04764v1 [physics.bio-ph].
- ^ PMID 17851481.
- ^ de Pracontal, Michel (27 September 2007). "Fraude à l'Institut Pasteur ? Savants au bord de la crise de nerfs". Le Nouvel Observateur (in French). No. 2238. p. 110.
Je leur ai expliqué la situation. J'ai dit que le devoir d'un scientifique était d'établir la vérité et que je m'étais trouvé dans un laboratoire dont le directeur agissait comme un faussaire. On m'a répondu que j'avais cinq jours pour me trouver un autre poste, de préférence hors de France !
- ^ de Pracontal, Michel (27 September 2007). "Fraude à l'Institut Pasteur ? Savants au bord de la crise de nerfs". Le Nouvel Observateur (in French). No. 2238. p. 108.
- ^ nzzfolio.ch NZZ-Folio, Duftnote[full citation needed]
- ^ Turin, Luca; Sanchez, Tania. Folio Columns 2003-2014.
- ^ perfumestheguide.com Luca Turin Archived 2016-01-26 at the Wayback Machine
External links
- The official website for Perfumes: The A-Z Guide contains a short biographical note and links to articles by Luca Turin.
- Luca Turin stopped updating Perfume Notes, his blog in January 2006. - archived posts.
- TED Talk video of Turin explaining the "Science of Scent"
- Luca Turin on Twitter