Breakout Session 1 A: Topics in Scientific Research

Understanding the chemical environment around us presents a singular challenge to biological senses and analytical instruments alike. The basis of this understanding lies in the ability to perform a measurement that allows one to distinguish one chemical mixture from another. However, the open-ended, combinatory way molecules and mixtures can be constructed leads to an immense number of potential chemical species to be sensed. Further, these species vary from one other in a complex manner that is difficult to express with a finite set of molecular descriptors. Nonetheless, effective strategies for chemical measurement have been developed, either through biological evolution over the millennia or through technological advancement over the past century. While none of these approaches are capable of comprehensively resolving all chemical sensing problems, they can clearly be optimized for specific sensing contexts and applications.

Critically, it is generally not well-understood how analytical capabilities emerge from olfactory systems, either biological or machine. This has led to a scarcity in best practices for sensor array design and configuration, and more importantly, a lack of understanding of the capabilities and limitations of such devices for various chemical sensing tasks. Thus, despite decades of unabated enthusiasm for the idea of machine olfaction in the research community, such devices remain underrepresented in the marketplace, with relatively few successful applications to demonstrate the promise of the technique. Likewise, while the underlying structure of biological olfaction is well-described, many aspects of olfactory perception remain a mystery, leaving the door open for significant over or underestimation of olfactory capabilities. This presentation will review how multisensory systems generate information regarding the chemical environment around them, discussing the implications for successful application of machine or biological olfaction for chemical sensing tasks.