Bill S. Hansson (born 1959) is a Swedish neuroethologist. From June 2014 until June 2020, he was vice president of the Max Planck Society. [1]
Bill S. Hansson (born 1959) is a Swedish neuroethologist. From June 2014 until June 2020, he was vice president of the Max Planck Society. [1]
Hansson studied biology at Lund University where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in biology in 1982. In 1988 he defended his PhD thesis in Ecology. From 1989 to 1990 he worked as postdoc at the University of Arizona and returned 1990 to a junior professorship in Lund. In 1992 he became Associate Professor and from 2000 until 2001 he was a Professor for Chemical Ecology at Lund University (2000). From 2001 he was Professor and Head of the Chemical Ecology department at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in Alnarp, Sweden, until he was appointed Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany in 2006. He is head of the Department of Evolutionary Neuroethology. [2] In 2010 the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena appointed him Honorary Professor.
Hansson's research focuses on neuroethological aspects of insect-insect and insect-plant interactions. He is mainly studying insect olfaction, [3] where his central questions are: How is semiochemical information (odors) detected by the antenna and processed in the insect brain, how did these detection and processing systems evolve, and how does olfaction guide insect behavior? [4] [5] He also compares these systems to other land-living arthropods, as the giant robber crab on Christmas Island. [6]
Olfactory receptors (ORs), also known as odorant receptors, are chemoreceptors expressed in the cell membranes of olfactory receptor neurons and are responsible for the detection of odorants which give rise to the sense of smell. Activated olfactory receptors trigger nerve impulses which transmit information about odor to the brain. These receptors are members of the class A rhodopsin-like family of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). The olfactory receptors form a multigene family consisting of around 800 genes in humans and 1400 genes in mice.
Obaid Siddiqi FRS was an Indian National Research Professor and the Founder-Director of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) National Center for Biological Sciences. He made seminal contributions to the field of behavioural neurogenetics using the genetics and neurobiology of Drosophila.
The antennal lobe is the primary olfactory brain area in insects. The antennal lobe is a sphere-shaped deutocerebral neuropil in the brain that receives input from the olfactory sensory neurons in the antennae and mouthparts. Functionally, it shares some similarities with the olfactory bulb in vertebrates. The anatomy and physiology function of the insect brain can be studied by dissecting open the insect brain and imaging or carrying out in vivo electrophysiological recordings from it.
Luca Turin is a biophysicist and writer with a long-standing interest in bioelectronics, the sense of smell, perfumery, and the fragrance industry.
The Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology is located on Beutenberg Campus in Jena, Germany. It was founded in March 1996 and is one of 80 institutes of the Max Planck Society. Chemical ecology examines the role of chemical signals that mediate the interactions between plants, animals, and their environment, as well as the evolutionary and behavioral consequences of these interactions. The managing director of the institute is Jonathan Gershenzon.
Odorant-binding proteins (OBPs) are small soluble proteins secreted by auxiliary cells surrounding olfactory receptor neurons, including the nasal mucus of many vertebrate species and in the sensillar lymph of chemosensory sensilla of insects. OBPs are characterized by a specific protein domain that comprises six α-helices joined by three disulfide bonds. Although the function of the OBPs as a whole is not well established, it is believed that they act as odorant transporters, delivering the odorant molecules to olfactory receptors in the cell membrane of sensory neurons.
Alexander "Axel" Borst is a German neurobiologist. He is director at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence and head of the department Circuits – Computation – Models.
The sense of smell, or olfaction, is the special sense through which smells are perceived. The sense of smell has many functions, including detecting desirable foods, hazards, and pheromones, and plays a role in taste.
Leslie Birgit Vosshall is an American neurobiologist and currently an Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator and the Robin Chemers Neustein Professor of Neurogenetics and Behavior at The Rockefeller University. In 2022 she was appointed Chief Scientific Officer and vicepresident of HHMI. She is also the director of the Kavli Neural Systems Institute at The Rockefeller University. Vosshall, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, is known for her contributions to the field of olfaction, particularly for the discovery and subsequent characterization of the insect olfactory receptor family, and the genetic basis of chemosensory behavior in mosquitoes. She has also extended her research into the study of human olfaction, revealing parts of human genetic olfactory architecture, and finding variations in odorant receptors that determine individuals’ abilities to detect odors.
Jonathan Gershenzon is an American biochemist.
Wilhelm Boland is a German chemist.
Ian Thomas Baldwin is an American ecologist.
David G. Heckel is an American entomologist.
Or83b, also known as Orco, is an odorant receptor and the corresponding gene that encodes it. The odorant receptor Or83b is not exclusively expressed in insects. Though its actual function is still a mystery, the broadly expressed Or83b has been conserved across highly divergent insect populations across 250 million years of evolution.
Insect olfaction refers to the function of chemical receptors that enable insects to detect and identify volatile compounds for foraging, predator avoidance, finding mating partners and locating oviposition habitats. Thus, it is the most important sensation for insects. Most important insect behaviors must be timed perfectly which is dependent on what they smell and when they smell it. For example, olfaction is essential for locating host plants and hunting prey in many species of insects, such as the moth Deilephila elpenor and the wasp Polybia sericea, respectively.
Howardula aoronymphium is a species of nematode that infects specialist mushroom-feeding fruit flies such as Drosophila falleni and Drosophila neotestacea. Mated female nematodes pierce the fly larva cuticle and take up residence in the hemolymph where they mature alongside the fly. When the adult fly ecloses, the nematode motherworm has reached full size and sheds juvenile nematodes into the hemolymph which are eventually excreted by either the fly anus or ovipositor. Howardula nematodes can severely impact fly egg development, as infection can effectively sterilize some species.
Bergamotenes are a group of isomeric chemical compounds with the molecular formula C15H24. The bergamotenes are found in a variety of plants, particularly in their essential oils.
Insect olfactory receptors are expressed in the cell membranes of the olfactory sensory neurons of insects. Similarly to mammalian olfactory receptors, in insects each olfactory sensory neuron expresses one type of OR, allowing the specific detection of a volatile chemical. Differently to mammalian ORs, insect ORs form a heteromer with a fixed monomer, Orco, and a variable OR monomer, which confers the odour specificity.
Olfactory language refers to language associated with the sense of smell. It involves the naming and categorisation of odours by humans according to each odour's perceived source or attributes. The study of olfactory language is part of the field of linguistics and is distinct from the study of semiochemical communication, which involves communication between organisms using chemical substances detected through olfaction.
Reinhard F. Stocker is a Swiss biologist. He pioneered the analysis of the sense of smell and taste in higher animals, using the fly Drosophila melanogaster as a study case. He provided a detailed account of the anatomy and development of the olfactory system, in particular across metamorphosis, for which he received the Théodore-Ott-Prize of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences in 2007, and pioneered the use of larval Drosophila for the brain and behavioural sciences.
Webpage of the Department of Evolutionary Neuroethology at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology
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