Many insect repellants are flawed. Some are strong or unpleasantly scented. There are also health implications of chemicals to consider.

But researchers have developed a surefire method of telling us which repellants will keep us from being bitten and won’t stink up the place.

By applying a machine learning model to analyze chemical structures and predict both insect repellency and human olfactory perception, a team of researchers from the University of California-Riverside was able to identify several novel compounds that both repel insects and emit scents humans like.

The experimental validation showed that 90 percent of the tested compounds were effective at repelling mosquitos, and many were pleasant smelling.

The results represent significant steps toward safer and more pleasant insect repellants for the consumer. Further exploration of this AI-driven approach could influence discoveries of new repellants that rely less on the usual chemicals and offer better safeguarding against insect-borne diseases.

The study was published in eLife.

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