Week 1 HW: Principles and Practices

Assignment 1

1. Gen Z and other young consumers are increasingly choosing scents based on mood versus identity, and their desire to use fragrance as a tool for communication and emotional intelligence is reshaping the fragrance market. The application I’ll be discussing this week - and my idea for a final project - is the development of a novel scent (perfume) called “Force Ambrosiaque”, a biological and chemical engineering-informed fragrance system that passively modulates its emitted scent profile in response to the wearer’s physiological state, without electronics, sensors, or living organisms.

This project two tightly linked, aspirational engineering components that will act as conditions for successful completion:

First, I aim to improve the biosynthesis of ambergris-like fragrance materials. Ambergris is a rare material harvested from sperm whales with obvious environmental consequences to its attainment. As a result, alternative amber materials have been engineered to fill its place; these scents are central to modern perfumery but are often produced through petrochemical routes that yield mixtures of isomers with poorly controlled perceptual and behavioral effects. By engineering more selective biosynthetic routes through the use of microorganisms, the goal is to produce amber scaffolds that are chemically stable and clean, environmentally preferable, and more predictable.

Second,, I am aiming to create a fully bottle-contained, self-modulating fragrance system that responds to changes in skin temperature, moisture, pH, enzymatic activity, and time. This is achieved through precursor molecules, stimulus-responsive carriers, and an understanding of how to work the natural volatility of various components into a stabilized perfume that achieves its intended outcome of determining which scent components are released under different physiological conditions. The system is designed to translate internal state into subtle changes in scent expression.

This system is inspired by the existence of Molecule 01, or Iso E Super, which is a near-universally appealing molecule engineered in the mid-century and often likened to an “olfactory MSG”. A stabilizer, it helps facilitate the aforementioned gated behaviors, but imperfectly. It also causes a number of potential adverse effects. I would like the backbone of this formula to be an Iso E Super successor.

The motivation for developing this tool is threefold:1. to explore a constrained, safety-conscious form of biological engineering

2. to treat scent as a communicative and expressive interface grounded in ancient cultural links between affect, embodiment, and social presence

And,

3. to investigate whether responsive chemical systems can be designed and used ethically and with minimal ecological impact, while reducing adverse effects for consumers. I will touch on this more in the next section.

2. The overarching governance-related goals of this project are to ensure that Force Ambrosiaque contributes to an ethical future of perfuming by reducing potential adverse effects of Iso E Super-family molecules and facilitating more ecologically friendly methods of producing prized ingredients and scents. However, a third consequential goal emerges from the existence of this project at all and general consumer-unfriendly trends in the cosmetics industry, which is to avoid over-promising on the “abilities” of this fragrance and avoid consumer deception in a time of scientific illiteracy.

Goal A: Human Safety

Ensure that Force Ambrosiaque does not cause physical harm to users or bystanders, particularly in light of its use of amber-like molecules, Iso-E-Super molecule family usage, and additional responsive fragrance chemistry.

Sub-goals:

Prevent acute harms such as skin irritation/sensitization or respiratory events due to volatility spikes (changes in rate or concentration of molecule release or application).
Prevent long-term harms related to cumulative exposure and uncertainty around use of novel biosynthetic fragrance compounds.
Ensure that biological engineering advances used to improve fragrance ingredients do not bypass existing toxicological, dermatological, or consumer safety evaluation norms.

Goal B: Environmental Stewardship

Ensure that both the biosynthetic production of amber-like materials and the downstream consumer use of the fragrance do not introduce ecological harm and accomplish the goal of a 1:1 replacement option for ambergris.

Sub-goals:

Avoid environmentally harmful, accumulative, or toxic components in production, formulation, and waste (as well as after disposal) especially in waterways.
Enable assessment response if environmental risks are identified after deployment.

Goal C: Consumer Transparency

Prevent the novel fragrance system used to develop Force from being used in ways that mislead users or overpromise biological effects for the sake of marketing.

Sub-goals:

Preserve user and buyer autonomy by ensuring clear communication and scientific honesty about how the system works, what biological signals it responds to, and the limits of its mechanisms and effects.
Prevent marketing that frames the fragrance as a tool for behavioral control, coercion, or guaranteed emotional or interpersonal outcomes.

3. Governance Actions (GAs)

GA1: Premarket safety standards for responsive fragrance systems

PurposeCurrently, fragrance safety evaluation is largely designed for “static” formulations (though truly all do change over time, here I use the term static to define fragrance designed without response in mind). I propose a new premarket safety standard specifically for fragrances - whether marketed as or actual - stimulus-responsive fragrance systems, which intentionally change emission profiles in response to skin conditions. This may seem like overreach or pie-in-the-sky thinking, and it very well may be, but for the purposes of this cognitive experiment I think we can proceed with the idea.

Design

Actors involved include fragrance companies, independent toxicology laboratories, academic researchers, and consumer safety regulators.
The standard would require testing under worst-case conditions, including elevated heat, moisture, and prolonged wear, mostly for signs of skin or respiratory irritation.
Required evaluations would include volatility curves, sensitization testing, inhalation exposure modeling, and degradation profiling (many of these I believe are already standard).
Compliance would be required before retail sale.
I am unsure if it is necessary that safety evaluations be publicly available, but it’s certainly a possibility.

Assumptions

Laboratory testing can meaningfully approximate real-world physiological variability.
Standardized protocols will not be prohibitively expensive for small innovators.

Risks of failure and success

Failure could occur if companies treat compliance as a rote or box-checking exercise and overlook key reactions, instabilities, impurities, etc.
Lack of human testing results in an imperfect system for ascertaining risk.

GA2: Tiered ingredient and supply-chain controls for high-risk components

PurposeAt present, fragrance ingredient sourcing varies widely in transparency and control. This action proposes a tiered governance system for various ingredients, especially for novel biosynthetic amber materials and responsive carrier systems, which may be exceptionally volatile (meant colloquially and scientifically).

Design

Actors include chemical suppliers, contract manufacturers, brands, and importers.
Ingredients would be classified into tiers based on novelty, reactivity, and exposure risk.
Higher-tier components would require enhanced documentation, impurity profiling, and restricted distribution.
Audits would verify that final formulations match expectations.

Assumptions

Risk can be reasonably stratified by ingredient class and release mechanism as well as compound structure and nature of the ingredient (organic vs synthetic).
Market incentives should (?) encourage supplier compliance.

Risks of failure and success

Failure could drive sourcing underground or discourage open research.
Success could concentrate power among a small number of certified suppliers, raising costs and limiting experimentation (a current issue in the industry).

GA3: Transparent marketing restrictions

PurposeCurrently, fragrance labeling rarely addresses consumer impulse (beyond the one to buy things) or social implications. This action proposes explicit science-oriented and restrictions on deceptive claims.

Design

Actors include brands, retailers, advertising platforms, and consumer protection agencies.
Labels would clearly state that the fragrance changes emission profiles with skin conditions and disclose allergens.
Marketing claims implying emotional, sexual, or behavioral effects, or overpromising the mechanisms of the formula, would be prohibited.
Usage guidance would discourage deployment in enclosed public spaces without consent.

Assumptions

Transparency meaningfully influences consumer behavior and social norms.
Advertising platforms can enforce claim standards consistently.

Risks of failure and success

Failure could result from unwillingness to read the label or consumer fatigue.
Investors or partners could wish for less transparency on account of potentially “demystifying” the product.

4. Rubric: Embodied Safety, Transparency, and Stewardship

Scoring: 1 = best, 2 = moderate, 3 = weakest, n/a = not applicable

Governance Options

Option 1: Premarket safety standards for responsive fragrance systems
Option 2: Tiered ingredient and supply-chain controls
Option 3: Labeling and marketing restrictions

5. Drawing on the scoring, I would prioritize a combined approach: Option 1 + Option 3 as the baseline, with a narrowly targeted version of Option 2 applied only to clearly defined higher-risk components - for the scope of this project I feel that leaning too hard into option 2 would simply be infeasible.

Option 1 performs best on preventing physical harm and supporting constructive development, which is the core ethical requirement for a responsive, body-exposed system. Option 3 performs best on transparency, autonomy, feasibility, and low stakeholder burden, and directly addresses the highest-likelihood misuse pathway for this space: overpromising effects where people don’t understand the science (a similar thing was done in the past with alleged “pheremone” perfumes). This is destructive for the industry and undermines the public’s already fragile scientific trust.

Option 2 is valuable where environmental risk and traceability matter most, but it is also the most likely to impede research and concentrate overspending beyond the means of this project, so it should be reserved for specific ingredient classes that warrant heightened control and is more of an aspirational criterion as far as this project is concerned.

The main trade-off is between safety assurance and innovation cost. Option 1 can raise barriers for small teams if compliance is expensive. Option 3 reduces deception and supports autonomy, but could “over-explain” the product. Finally, Option 2 improves environmental stewardship and recall capability, but broad supply-chain restrictions could drive budget constraints toward opaque sourcing. A targeted tiered approach like the one explained above reduces that risk. I would direct this recommendation to a consumer product safety regulator and a retail and advertising coalition composed of large retailers, major e-commerce platforms, and major ad platforms, paired with an industry standards consortium that includes fragrance houses, contract manufacturers, and independent toxicology labs.

This recommendation assumes that premarket testing can meaningfully approximate real-world variability across diverse skin types, climates, and usage patterns, and that labeling and advertising enforcement can be applied consistently enough to reduce deceptive claims. It also assumes that the most consequential harms are likely to arise from (1) unanticipated exposure and sensitization and (2) coercive or misleading marketing.

Key uncertainties include the behavior of novel compounds under poor storage or usage conditions, and cultural effects around the concept of a perfume’s active role as a conduit for physiological/biological signal.

This week’s class reminded me to contemplate how ethical risk often arises not from overtly malicious intent, but from misalignment between technical capability, social interpretation, and governance scope. One concern that became salient to me in the context of cosmetics rather than my home territory of software and medical devices (where this is really, really important) is epistemic harm, a concept also raised and debated briefly in the Zoom chat during lecture: the risk that scientifically adjacent products can mislead users through the appearance of biological authority, even when physical risks are low. In the context of responsive or “bio-inspired” systems, overpromising mechanisms, effects, or certainty can undermine autonomy just as much as coercion, particularly when consumers lack the tools to distinguish poetic or marketing or abstract framing from empirical claims.

To address these issues, governance actions should extend beyond traditional safety regulation. In addition to premarket safety standards that account for dynamic exposure and degradation, I think claims governance and transparency requirements are especially important. I also see value in proportional, tiered oversight that focuses stricter controls on higher-risk components or contexts, rather than broadly constraining exploratory research. Together, these approaches help preserve innovation while addressing the ethical risks that arise at the intersection of embodiment, perception, and trust.

Homework Questions

Homework Questions from Professor Jacobson

Nature’s machinery for copying DNA is called polymerase. What is the error rate of polymerase? How does this compare to the length of the human genome. How does biology deal with that discrepancy?

The length of the human genome is 3.2 Gbp (3.2 billion base pairs). With error correcting polymerase, the error rate during synthesis is 1 error:10^6 nucleotides. That’s about 3200 errors per cell division, a stark difference from the fewer than 5 errors that actually are observed during genome replication in humans. This is because exonucleolytic proofreading and mismatch repair systems save us from catastrophe.

How many different ways are there to code (DNA nucleotide code) for an average human protein? In practice what are some of the reasons that all of these different codes don’t work to code for the protein of interest?

There is an astronomically large amount of ways to code for an average human protein - 64 possible triplet codons encode 20 amino acids, and the average human protein is a handful of hundreds of amino acids long. Although these sequences may, in theory, produce the same protein, not all codes are equally effective (codon usage bias; translation speed, mRNA stability, protein folding, etc.).

Homework Questions from Dr. LeProust

What’s the most commonly used method for oligo synthesis currently?

Solid-phase phosphoramidite DNA synthesis is the dominant method in industry, currently, wherein nucleotides are added a base at a time through a cyclic process to a growing oligonucleotide.

Why is it difficult to make oligos longer than 200nt via direct synthesis?

Each coupling step is not 100% efficient, so even with very good coupling efficiency there is exponential yield loss with increasing length and it ceases to be yield and error effective.

Why can’t you make a 2000bp gene via direct oligo synthesis?

Due to the bp length, basically no full length molecules would be produced due to the accumulation of errors mentioned above. In addition, purification and quality control would be extremely difficult (separating the desired signal of 2000bps from a background of noise).

Homework Question from George Church:

[Using Google & Prof. Church’s slide #4] What are the 10 essential amino acids in all animals and how does this affect your view of the “Lysine Contingency”?

The 10 essential amino acids in all animals - including us humans - are arginine, histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine. Based on what we now know, it’s funny - allegedly, Dr. Henry Wu of Jurassic Park modified the genome to knock out the capability of dinosaurs to create their own lysine… but obviously, they don’t produce it anyways, and they continue to get it from vegetarian. An unlikely oversight driven by hubris.