Personalized pesticides-a new paradigm: volatilization of individual components of botanical insect repellents from human skin

Botanical pesticides are generally considered as safer alternatives for conventional chemical pesticides. Unlike conventional pesticides, botanical pesticides consist of several components that may play an active role in the toxicity of the mixture. These components not only can chemically interact with each other and synergize or suppress each other’s effect, but they also can affect the physical properties of the mixture such as volatilization rate. Our objective in this project was to study volatilization of a commercial botanical insect repellent from human skin. We analyzed a sample of an insect repellent on human skin with an ultra-fast gas chromatograph (zNose™) and noticed that different constituents are released from the mixture at different times in human subjects. We found significant differences in volatilization patterns based on our subjects’ gender, ethnicity and skin color and condition. The results of this study not only create a foundation for more detailed studies in future, but also can help the industry to promote the concept of “personalized pesticides” as an alternative for “ generic formulation”.