Affiliations
Research Associate, Monell Chemical Senses Center
Education
Ph.D., Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania
Laboratory Of
Dr. Joel Mainland
Research Summary
My research goals are to better understand how the sense of smell functions by studying human genetics. By identifying variations in olfactory receptors that are associated with the differences in human perception of particular odors, we can gain insight into what receptors are responsible for detecting which odors and how they work in concert to code for our sense of smell.
In order to understand how human olfaction works in general, I am studying a population of individuals with congenital anosmia, a condition where people are born without a sense of smell. By identifying variants that cause anosmia, we can learn what genes may be necessary for the human olfactory system to function properly.
Keywords
olfaction, genomics, psychophysics, anosmia
Representative Publications
*authors contributed equally to the work:
Li B.*, Kamarck, M. L.*, Peng, Q.*, Lim, F-L, Keller, A., Smeetes, M. A. M., Mainland, J. D., Wang, S. (2022) From musk to body odor: Decoding olfaction through genetic variation. PLOS Genetics. 18(2), e1009564. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1009564
