An Organic Perfume ?

Steven Lergos is the first student to be enrolled in the new Basic Techniques in Biotechnology course at Capital. Steve is a typical non-traditional student in that he is coming to Capital to learn new job skills that will enable him to pursue a new career. Steve is an entrepreneur at heart and has become interested in the biomanufacturing of organic perfumes. Chemical synthesis of perfume is toxic to the environment and also does not efficiently produce the isomer with the desired aromatherapeutic effect. In his first bioengineering project,  he will be using the iGEM plasmid repository to generate and express a tagged form of jasmonic acid carboxyl methyltransferase. This is the enzyme that converts jasmonic acid to the highly desirable   methyl jasmonate or Jasmine. The tagged version of the enzyme  will enable it’s affinity purification and the production of a catalytic nano gel that will carry out the organic synthesis.