香水能否成为人蚊大战中的秘密武器？| 盖茨笔记

Are you a mosquito magnet? If you don’t seem to get your unfair share of mosquito bites every summer, chances are you know someone who does. Some people are just more attractive to the pests than others.

你是“吸蚊”体质吗？如果每年夏天你并没有遭受过多的蚊子叮咬，那么很可能你认识一些在这方面有相反经历的人。有些人对蚊虫来说更具吸引力。

The reason why is probably how you smell. Mosquitoes rely on their sense of smell to find their targets, and they’re drawn to certain odors naturally produced by the human body. Although some people may be a little more attractive, the unfortunate truth is that we all smell like a delicious meal to mosquitoes. You can hide yourself for a while using a bug spray like DEET or treating your clothes with permethrin. But if you want sustained protection, you have to add another step to your routine, which not everyone has the time to do or can afford.

这种现象的原因可能在于你的体味。蚊子依靠嗅觉找到它们的目标，而人体会自然地产生一些气味，吸引了它们。尽管有些人可能更受蚊子青睐，但不幸的是，对于蚊子来说，我们都散发出美味的气味。你可以使用类似DEET的驱蚊喷雾暂时性地保护自己，或者用百灭宁（译注：一种抗寄生虫药物）处理你的衣物以防止蚊虫叮咬。但如果你希望持续保护自己，就需要在日常生活中加入额外的步骤，然而并非每个人都有时间或能力负担得起这些。

There’s good news on the horizon, though: A company called dsm-firmenich is working to make repelling mosquitoes as easy as washing up in the morning.

然而，好消息即将到来：一家名为帝斯曼-芬美意的公司正努力让驱蚊变得像早上洗漱一样简单。

I actually visited dsm-firmenich’s lab in Geneva back in 2016, when I checked out their innovative work to improve sanitation for the world’s poorest by reducing toilet odors. The nutrition, beauty, and health company is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of flavors and fragrances. Most of their products are used to make our food taste better and our household products smell more appealing, but they also have a history of using their scent expertise to fight disease transmission. Their latest efforts are focused on stopping mosquitoes, because the diseases they carry kill hundreds of thousands of people each year, most of whom are children in low-income countries.

实际上，我在2016年曾访问过帝斯曼-芬美意在日内瓦的实验室，那时我了解到他们通过减少厕所气味来改善世界最贫困地区的卫生条件的创新工作。这家主要从事营养、美容和健康领域的公司是全球最大的风味和香氛制造商之一。他们的绝大部分产品用于提升我们食物的美味，以及家居用品的吸引力，但他们也有利用自己的气味专业知识来对抗疾病传播的经验。他们最新的工作方向在于抗蚊，它们携带的疾病每年夺走数十万人的生命，其中大部分是低收入国家的儿童。

The team’s goal is simple: Incorporate scents that repel mosquitoes into everyday products. After doing extensive research into the household products used most frequently in places where mosquito-borne diseases are common, they decided to focus mostly on bar soap and powdered laundry detergent. (They’re also thinking about other things like body lotion and body cream.) These products are already scented with a fragrance—what if that fragrance also helped keep mosquitoes away?

他们团队的目标非常明确：将能够驱蚊的气味融入日常用品中。在对蚊媒传播疾病普遍发生地区的常用家居产品进行了广泛研究后，他们决定主要集中在香皂和洗衣粉上。（他们还在考虑其他产品，如乳液和润肤霜。）这些产品中已经含有香气，那么如果这种香气还能有助于驱蚊呢？

The idea is that you gain an added halo of protection without having to add any new steps to your daily routine or buy any new products. No one at dsm-firmenich thinks this kind of protection will be a silver bullet, but their hope is that, when combined with other proven tools like bed nets, people can significantly and sustainably lower their risk of catching deadly diseases like malaria and dengue.

这个想法的核心是，在不需要改变日常习惯或购买新产品的前提下，你能够获得额外的保护。尽管在帝斯曼-芬美意公司，没有人认为这种保护会是万能的解决方案，但他们希望这种方法能够与其他已被证明有效的工具（如床上蚊帐）相结合，显著且持续地降低人们患上疟疾和登革热等致命疾病的风险。

Making a bar soap that gives you all-day protection against mosquitoes is a lot more complex than just infusing it with citronella. The scientists in Geneva started by identifying a wide array of scent ingredients that keep the pests away and are commonly used to create perfumes. Some of these ingredients are true repellants, giving off a smell that causes mosquitoes to fly in the opposite direction. Others block receptors in the mosquito’s brain that usually perceive and draw them to humans.

制作一块能够全天保护你免受蚊虫侵扰的香皂，要比简单地添加香茅气味要复杂得多。日内瓦的科学家们首先确定了一系列能够驱赶害虫的气味成分，这些成分通常被用于制作香水。其中一些成分真正具有驱虫效果，它们散发的气味会让蚊子远离。其他一些成分则会阻止蚊子的大脑受体，这些受体通常会感知和吸引蚊子接近人类。

As they were combining the ingredients to create new fragrances, the team knew they had to keep a human-centered design approach in mind. The best candidates wouldn’t necessarily be the most effective—they also had to smell clean and fresh. I love the smell of cheeseburgers, but I don’t think I’d want my laundry to smell like them every day even if they protected me from mosquitoes!

在将这些成分组合以创造新香氛时，团队明白他们必须始终保持以人为中心的设计理念。最佳的候选成分不仅仅需要最有效——还必须散发出干净清爽的气味。我喜欢芝士汉堡的香味，但即使它们能保护我免受蚊虫侵扰，我也不会希望每天都让我的衣物散发着这种味道！

To test the most promising odors, researchers used a tool I know all too well: The arm-in-cage test, where a human puts their arm—which has been coated in the fragrance being studied—into an enclosed area filled with hundreds of mosquitoes. Sensors track how the mosquitoes respond and whether they’re biting the arm. The team considered any test with two mosquito bites a failure.

为了测试最佳气味，研究人员采用了我非常熟悉的一种方法：手臂进笼测试。测试中，一个人把被涂抹了研究中气味的手臂放入一个封闭区域，区域内有数百只蚊子。传感器会追踪蚊子的反应以及它们是否叮咬手臂。团队认为，一旦受到两次蚊子叮咬的测试则被视为失败。

Tests are still ongoing, but they’ve already revealed some surprising results. One of the most effective fragrances so far smells like lily-of-the-valley, a light floral scent that is commonly used in perfumery. It’s exactly the kind of fresh scent that people like in their soaps and laundry detergents. The team’s early results indicate that some lily-of-the-valley odors could be as effective as DEET when used at certain doses.

测试仍在继续中，但已经揭示了一些令人惊讶的结果。目前为止，最有效的香氛之一散发着铃兰花的轻盈花香，这在香水制作中很常见。这正是人们在香皂和洗衣粉中喜欢的清新气味。团队的初步结果表明，一些铃兰花气味在特定剂量下使用时，可能与DEET一样有效。

The next step is the most difficult, and it remains to be seen whether it will succeed. The mosquito experts at dsm-firmenich have handed off the best scent candidates to the company’s product formulation experts and perfumers, who are now looking for ways to make them last all day in consumer products.

接下来的步骤是最具挑战性的，是否能够成功还有待观察。帝斯曼-芬美意公司的蚊虫专家已将最佳气味候选物移交给公司的产品配方专家和香水师，他们现在正致力于寻找方法，让这些气味在消费品中能够做到全天持续有效。

It’s a tall order. Scent ingredients are fragile, and activities like scrubbing your hands or washing your clothes cause them to vanish quickly. (Think about how quickly that freshly laundered smell can fade from your clothes.) A perfume that protects you from mosquitoes all day will likely end up being the result of a whole lot of innovation and a complex combination of different scents, rather than one single ingredient. And, of course, the final result has to smell good enough that people are willing to use it every day.

这是一项巨大的挑战。气味成分很脆弱，像是洗手或洗衣服这样的活动会迅速使它们消失。（想想那种刚洗好的衣服的气味是多么迅速地褪去。）能够全天保护你免受蚊虫侵扰的香水很可能需要大量的创新，以及复杂的气味组合，而不仅仅是单一的成分。当然，最终的成果还必须闻起来足够好，让人们愿意每天使用。

Still, I’m optimistic the scent wizards in Geneva will find a way. The Gates Foundation is supporting their research with the hope that, one day, people in high-risk areas will gain more mosquito protection without having to do any extra work or spend any extra money. When the world gives children and families more tools to protect themselves, we save lives—and take the bite out of the world’s deadliest animal.

尽管如此，我对日内瓦的这些气味专家能够找到方法感到乐观。盖茨基金会正在支持他们的研究，希望有一天，高风险地区的人们可以在不需要额外工作或更多花费的情况下获得更好的蚊虫保护。当世界为儿童和家庭提供更多保护工具时，我们就能挽救生命，并减少世界上最致命的动物的威胁。