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takyon writes:

New generation of deodorants 'on the way'

Experts believe they have found a better way to tackle body odour (BO). The key, they say, is understanding how skin bacteria create the smell from virtually odourless armpit sweat.

Two teams, at the Universities of York and Oxford, say they have now deciphered the first step in this molecular process. It could pave the way for a new generation of deodorants designed to block this unpleasant chain of events, the journal eLife [open, DOI: 10.7554/eLife.34995] [DX] reports.

[...] Co-author Dr Gavin Thomas, from the Department of Biology at the University of York, said: "Modern deodorants act a bit like a nuclear bomb in our underarms, inhibiting or killing many of the bacteria present in order to prevent BO. Only a small number of the bacteria in our armpits are actually responsible for bad smells."

These Staphylococus hominis bacteria use a "transport" protein to recognise and swallow up the odourless compounds secreted in sweat that they convert into BO. And Dr Thomas and colleagues say this could be used as a blueprint to develop a more guided weapon against BO - a new type of spray or roll-on deodorant containing a substance that would stop the transport protein from functioning.

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