ABSTRACT
This review is intended as an introduction for nonspecialists to structure-odor relationships (SOR), and as a critique of the field rather than a compendium. The perspective will be that of biology rather than fragrance chemistry. In other words, we are more interested in what SORs tell us about the mechanisms of human olfaction than about the synthetic chemistry of odorants. We believe that the recent advances (see Mombaerts, 1999a, for review) that followed Buck and Axel’s 1991 discovery of odorant receptors will someday make odorant design a rational process. In the meantime, we want to highlight a few salient findings which we feel a successful SOR theory must account for, in the hope that this will help researchers design experiments to elucidate the mystery of primary olfactory reception.
