New perfumes for bugs

Chemistry-RACI, Media releases

IUPAC Symposium 4B – Natural Products, Tuesday 4pm

John Pickett, Rothamsted Research

John Pickett and his British colleagues are creating new kinds of perfumes or attractants for pest insects.

They’re employing farnesyl diphosphate—the ‘parent’ molecule  that insects use as the starting point for many chemical signals such as sex pheromones—to create new, more powerful attractants that will be cheaper and easier to make.