Luca Turin

Luca Turin (1953 - ) is a biophysicist with a long-standing interest in the sense of smell, the art of perfume, and the fragrance industry.

Since 1996 Turin has been the leading proponent of the vibration theory of olfaction, which proposes that the vibrational spectroscopic properties of molecules can be an important determinant of their associated smells, rather than just the specific "lock and key" ligand binding proposed by the orthodox shape theory of olfaction. Turin suggested that a plausible mechanism for such a molecular spectroscope could be inelastic electron tunneling. Long regarded with scepticism, this proposal is now gaining some support from experimentalists.

Turin was a tenured staff member at CNRS in France for ten years, and was later lecturer in biophysics at University College London. In 2001 Turin became CTO of start-up company Flexitral, based in Chantilly, Virginia, to pursue rational odorant design based on his theories.

He is the author of the book The Secret of Scent (2006), which details the history and science of his theory of olfaction, and an acclaimed critical guide on perfume, Parfums : Le guide, with two editions published in French in 1992 and 1994. He is also the subject of the 2003 book The Emperor of Scent by Chandler Burr, as well as of the BBC Horizon documentary "A Code in the Nose."

Since 2003, Turin has also written a regular column on perfume, "Duftnote," for NZZ Folio, the German-language monthly magazine of Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung. The column is also published in English on the magazine's website.

In late 2006 Viking Press announced a forthcoming book written by Turin and co-author Tania Sanchez called Perfumes: The Guide, which will include reviews of more than 1,200 fragrances, from "Undoubted Masterpieces" to the "Monumentally Awful." The book is scheduled to be published in April 2008.