This post is generously sponsored by Randi Ellias.
As The Toast searches for its one true Gal Scientist, we will be running a ton of wonderful one-off pieces by female scientists of all shapes and sizes and fields and education levels, which we are sure you will enjoy. They’ll live here, so you can always find them.
Last summer, I didn’t wear deodorant for three months straight (note: I was in Paris, and as a California girl, the Parisian summer might as well be winter to me). Before you stop reading and dismiss me as the most disgusting gal scientist to ever exist, hear me out! My fellow scientists and I were curious about what our body odor is, how it works, and why we are so disgusted by something that is, in fact, natural. We all think that body odor comes from sweat, but sweat in its original form is, by and large, odorless. There are millions of tiny bacterial species that reside on the surface of our skin that metabolize, or eat up, the different compounds that make up sweat. These bacteria thrive in warm and humid places, such as our underarms, and some of their metabolic processes create volatile compounds that we can smell: this is what we call body odor.
Some of the bacteria that are known to cause body odor are species within the genera Staphylococcus and Corynebacteria, and these species can be found everywhere on our skin. You can think of the body odor production process as one similar to the fermentation process for beer. Just as some beers smell or taste different from others, so do we smell different from other people. This is because there are small but important differences in the composition of the bacterial species that live on our skin. You might also find that some people (unfairly!) don’t have much body odor at all. Studies have shown that diet, social setting, and the genetic makeup we inherit from our parents can all influence the types of bacteria that live on us.
Bacteria…Bacteria Everywhere
Think of your body as an ecosystem for the trillions of microorganisms (including bacteria, viruses, and fungi) that live in and on us: a rainforest of organisms. The various microorganisms that live on the surface of our bodies compose what is known as our skin microbiome. While some of these bacteria contain genes that are responsible for the production of body odor, most of them are there to help maintain the delicate balance of the ecosystem that is our skin surface. The skin is the first interface between the outside world and the inside of our bodies, and there is evidence that suggests the bacteria on the surface of our skin are key players in not only protecting us from pathogens and other bad things, but also helping our immune systems ward off bad infections without over-inflammation. Without these bacteria, we would have more severe skin and health problems.
Traditional antiperspirants and deodorants work in two ways. Deodorants are typically alcohol-based, which stimulates sweating, but also kills bacteria. Often deodorants are formulated with other antimicrobials, such as a compound known as triclosan and, more commonly, metals like aluminum, which work to eradicate all the bacteria that is present on the surface that it is applied to. On the other hand, antiperspirants attempt to stop perspiration and therefore lower the amount of moisture on your skin surface, which creates an unhealthy environment for your skin bacteria. These antiperspirants are also typically aluminum-based, and essentially react with the salts in your sweat to make gels that plug up the ducts of your sweat glands.
These strategies for reducing body odor work to destroy everything that is living on the surface of your skin, regardless of whether it is helpful to you or not. As you can probably imagine, this has many negative implications. One solution to the body odor problem that we need to work on is targeting specific genes that are responsible for making those volatile compounds. (Note: the perception of body odor as a social problem may be a recent phenomenon: in a letter to Joséphine, Napoleon Bonaparte requested that she not bathe, since he was on his way home!)
Let’s Talk Molecular Biology
Metabolism is a complex and perplexing process. While we have uncovered large numbers of pathways in various biological systems (see the metabolic map below for a visual expression), we still don’t fully understand how different pathways – different sections of this map – interact with each other and work together. There are countless instances of regulation based on very specific changes in concentrations of very specific components inside and outside the cell.
One aspect of metabolism we do understand quite well, however, is the central dogma of biology. The central dogma is a concept that refers to the basic process of how cells go about their daily activities. It encompasses a host of components and is one of the main activities of a cell. Here is a quick and dirty version of it: first, you start with the basic component of life, a DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) sequence. DNA sequences in cells are split into genes that each encode for a particular function; several of these genes together create a pathway, and several pathways create networks. During a process known as transcription, DNA is read by a molecule known as RNA Polymerase, which creates strands of mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid). Oftentimes, it’s easy to think of DNA as a hard drive (which contains information for a long time and doesn’t get changed or deleted often) and RNA as the RAM (memory that is ephemeral). Through a process called translation, a molecule known as a ribosome reads the mRNA and creates proteins (sequences of amino acids). Proteins are the business end of the cellular process; they can fold in various ways and drive reactions in your cell that let the cell go about and do all that it needs to.
So what does all this have to do with body odor? Well, we know that the genes involved in metabolism in the bacteria on our skin surface are the cause of body odor. We also know that because bacteria multiply super fast (much faster than human cells), they tend to make mistakes in copying their genes – just as if you were typing a lot faster than your normal speed, you would make some typos. These mistakes, called mutations, can sometimes lead to the cell creating a protein that isn’t functional.
Imagine such a mutation occurring in an odor-related gene that rendered it non-functional – we would have bacteria but it wouldn’t make us smell bad! Now imagine trying to find this one bacterium that we want to isolate from the billions of bacteria on our skin surface making us smell bad: not so easy.
How to Solve this Needle-in-a-Haystack Puzzle
One idea for isolating these naturally occurring mutants is using a technique known as a CRISPR/Cas system (short for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats,” pronounced “crisper-cas”). The CRISPR/Cas system is present in bacterial cells, and is a way to maintain immunity against invading genes from particles such as viruses. Recently, we have started using this system for editing genes by adding, deleting, and changing their DNA sequences. We can do this by using this system to make double-stranded breaks at very specific locations (to the single nucleotide specificity!) in the DNA sequence.
So we can use this tool to make very specific double-stranded cuts in the wild-type, or normal and functional, sequence of any odor-gene we want. By doing so, we can take a population of bacterial species, remove all the functional, odor-causing bacteria (because making such a double stranded cut kills the bacteria in question), and isolate the bacteria that has mutations. Not all the bacteria will mutations will be the ones we want, but by using bioinformatics techniques, we can guess that mutations in some parts of the genes may be better to target than ones. In doing so, we can find the non-smelly mutants!
Once We Find the Mutants, Then What?
You’ve probably heard of probiotics, such as those found in many yogurts, that can help you digest your food better. In a similar fashion, we might be able to find a way to make a cream or deodorant you could apply to your skin. It would allow the natural, non-smelly mutants to live their normal lives on your skin, working with your body instead of against it. Eventually, your native bacteria would take over and you’d start to smell again, but with reapplication (as with any deodorant!), you could theoretically reduce your body odor in a manner that is also body-friendly.
Until we get there, I started using a deodorant called Crystal Essence, which doesn’t contain aluminum-based compounds. The next time you roll on your favorite deodorant, think of the little bacteria you are killing that are just trying to help you out!
Tags: aakriti jain, biology, body odor, gal science, science
This is a great article. I’ve been anti aluminum-based deodorants for years now. I stopped after reading some research on how aluminum-based products may contribute to higher chances of breast cancer. I figured better safe than sorry. I’ve never tried Crystal Essence though. I use Real Purity’s roll-on deodorant, which is my favorite of all the ones I’ve tried.
I hate to say it, but I don’t think I could give up antiperspirant deodorant. I sweat a lot. Like, visible half moons under my arms at work sometimes. I don’t think I could get over the embarrassment!
Ugh me too. I wish this article would have explored the so-called consequences of using aluminum-based antiperspirants, because everything I’ve read has always said that it’s perfectly fine. Plus I’m not convinced of the aluminum/breast cancer link, since there’s not a lot of evidence out there about it and whatever there is always seems to be based on one study that was pretty inconclusive.
I would also love a Gal Scientist’s take on this! I occasionally wonder if I should ditch regular deodorant, but then I just keep using swiping my aluminum filled Dove in my pits. (Also, the one time I DID try aluminum free deodorant, it gave me a rash.)
Was it baking soda-based (the one that gave you a rash)? Because I have been using one of the crystal rock deodorants (I get the ones that come in plastic applicator-y containers, though, because I am not enough of a hippie to deal with handling a slimy rock every morning), but in the hottest part of the summer or if I’m doing some intense physical labor, I sweat/stink a bit. (Note: Stinking a little in the summer doesn’t actually bother me, and I bathe every day, so I’m not, like, smellable from across a room, but…social courtesy, &c.) Anyway, I was trying to find something that maybe made me actually sweat less, but was still hippie-ish, and I tried some amaaaaaaaaaaazing stuff — Schmidt’s, in the pretty glass jars, the cedar & juniper flavor — and it worked SO WELL and I swear I was less sweaty and not at all stinky for several months…until I slowly developed a really unpleasant rash. And apparently that’s fairly common and it’s a reaction to the baking soda. Swabbing your pits with apple cider vinegar and/or a protective layer of coconut oil before applying the deodorant is supposed to keep that from happening, but that is too many steps and layers of things for something that should be simple, so I just went back to using the crystal and being a bit sweaty and stinky on occasion. (On really hot days I spray some Rosewater & Witchhazel toner on, after rubbing the crystal on, and that actually kind of helps?)
Snopes says there is no “conclusive evidence” according to the NIH <a href=”http://(http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/antiperspirant.asp),” target=”_blank”>(http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/antiperspirant.asp), and I checked the American Cancer Society website and found a similar statement. While I understand that a study COULD come out at any time that provides support for a link between antiperspirants and cancer, my inclination is to go with the available information.
Also, I have never found an antiperspirant-free deodorant that has worked at all for me, and I take public transportation and don’t want to stank up my subway car for my fellow passengers, especially in summer.
ETA: Supposed to be in response to GreenGrasses. The comment system has been cruel to me today.
Microbiome studies, and especially those concerning the skin microbiome are still in their nascent stage. There is a lot in the field that is unknown. It’s true that the links between breast cancer and antiperspirants is not a well-defined one; however, new studies have shown that there is quite a complex relationship between hosts and microorganisms, many of which can help us against inflammation and help our immune systems.
According to the NIH: “Although it is now clear that several dominant organisms (that is, Staphylococcus and Propionibacterium spp.) constitute a large proportion of the skin microbiota, little is understood about the rare or transient organisms making up the balance. It is unclear what factors drive variation in these organisms, and how fluctuation is associated with skin disease….Although there is a general agreement that microorganisms are potential components of many skin disorders, including those described here, little is understood about their contribution and how it relates to the genetic and environmental variation that also contributes to the disease. Many common skin diseases are associated with a specific stage of life, a specific topographical location and/or specific microorganisms. Whether this specificity is driven by the endogenous microbial community structure remains to be determined.”
Essentially, a lot of interaction studies are inconclusive because we are only at the tip of the iceberg in our understanding of how deep our relations with the organisms we interact with on a daily basis go.
I’ve found that since switching to a non-aluminum antiperspirant, I sweat the same amount, but I don’t get deodorant stains on my clothes, which is awesome.
“Plus I’m not convinced of the aluminum/breast cancer link”
I was under the impression that that had been completely debunked. I’m not particularly bothered, in any case.
YMMV and my experience here is totally anecdotal, but i have honestly felt like i sweat LESS after switching from antiperspirants. that was actually my main reason for switching – the idea that they block the sweat glands just kind of grossed me out, and i often felt like i actually would sweat MORE after applying an antiperspirant…. once it wore off i felt like my pits turned into waterfalls unless i reapplied constantly.
anyway, i’ve tried a few different brands of aluminum-free ones, and i think the way each brand/scent interacts with your body chemistry affects your experience pretty dramatically, but for the most part i’m happy having made the switch and generally don’t feel sweaty/smelly. but again… take this with a tablespoon of salt.
I’ve had the same experience as you. I feel like I sweat less since I gave up antiperspirants. And while I do sweat, it doesn’t seem like it smells the same way it did when I wore antiperspirants.
Ditto. My body seems to do a lot of overcompensating – I’ve switched to washing my face less, washing my hair less, and using crystal deodorant instead of antiperspirant, and in every case I have fewer problems when I’m using less product. (YMMV though! All bodies are different!)
Yeah, I just dislike being sweaty. I actually don’t get terribly smelly and don’t really care too much about the deodorant aspect. I’m also not really all that worried about killing off the bacteria in a small area of my body if the same ones live, you know, on all the rest of my skin.
this was awesome. some of the technical details went over my head but now i have something to learn more about. :3 also, i would definitely read a follow-up investigating the role of diet and microbiomes in body odor in more detail., or even the role of culture in determining how we perceive body odor… or, you know, i could be not-lazy and do my own research, but.
also super curious to know more about the evolutionary advantages/disadvantages of B.O. and when it became more socially stigmatized, etc.
Thanks! If you’d like some further reading, I found these articles interesting on our relationship with microbes and the skin: https://www.genome.gov/27559614 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC35350… http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/artic… http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/03/…
On the cultural aspect, a lot is still speculative and unknown, but that is something I’m not necessarily equipped to answer you with, but definitely interested!
As I understand it, the real social stigmatization arose with–surprise surprise–the advent of advertising. Now, obviously, there had to have been first the invention of commercial deodorants (as opposed to the folk remedies suggested in etiquette books and household manuals) in order to have something to advertise, but it was the early ads that shouted “DO YOU STINK TO HIGH HELL AND OFFEND EVERYONE AROUND YOU? MAYBE THAT’S WHY YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS!!!!” that really made the Western populace BO-conscious.
In one sentence you managed to explain both DNA and computer memory to me in a way that actually made sense. Thank you!
My main problem with antiperspirants is that they stain! Maybe there’s something about my own microbiome that makes light-colored clothes immediately yellow in the armpits when I wear aluminum-based antiperspirants, because no one else seems to think that this is a problem.
Jolie Kerr has you covered! http://deadspin.com/how-to-stop-sweating-and-elim…
No, that totally happens to me too. I switched to one without aluminum, and it’s made a huge difference.
So you’re proposing creating a GM bacteria that doesn’t express a smell as a thing to smear on armpits.
And your process for creating this is by causing hella mutations in bacteria already adapted to live on human skin.
Did you skip your bioethics course?
Isn’t that what this company’s product does? http://mist.aobiome.com/
They found a bacteria that turns ammonia into nitrates in some circumstances, and encourage people to put that on their skin. Let me see if it’s actually found on live human skin or if the people selling the product are encouraging it to mutate.
Not as far as I can tell from the website. It makes no mention of modifying the genomes of the bacteria they are selling. Nor is there any proof anywhere on the site that the product does any of the things it claims to do.
The concern isn’t about the lack of smell, its about the willful modification of an organism and then the release of it back into the wild where it will have undetermined effects on the native population and the biome at large.
OK, obviously I’ve spent only like twenty minutes on this, so I may be very very wrong. Also, to be clear, this is unrelated to this article.
But: it’s not listed as a known skin bacteria by the ncbi. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC35350…
It is ALL OVER the ncbi database; there are five whole genomes, and it’s very important in soil, restoring polluted soils, and keeping fish from dying in your fish tank, so if it were there, it should show up on one of the microbiome analyses.
There are papers saying “oh no totally normal thing to have on your skin yes.” but they are all by people from aobiome. No other mammals seem to have it? Even ones that don’t use soap?
This is almost certainly a crock, and if it isn’t you can get the same effect by bathing in a swamp or putting water from an aquarium filter on your armpits. That would be cheaper.
Thanks for your comment! My fault for not being clear in my wording in the post. The method I’m speaking of is actually selecting for NATURALLY OCCURRING mutants. So, the genetic modification tool is used to find the mutant that is already occurring in natural skin micobiome samples and not in order to induce unnatural mutations ourselves. This isn’t genetically modified bacteria since the isolate itself is something that naturally occurred and works with the skin. The idea is to enrich the skin surface with this naturally occurring non-smelly isolates of bacteria. Is that a bit clearer?
Yes. That is much less upsetting. Thank you.
And (should it come to that point) people who provide the samples that will be searched for these non-smelly cultures are going to give informed consent for their use and be compensated, yes? Because that’s the next ethical issue I had concerns about: exploitation. ‘Cause otherwise this is like Henrietta Lacks meets the genetic colonialism of modern commercial plant breeding.
Pffffffffffffffffoeiiiii.
I am still confused. It’s a means of sample purification that selects for a non-smelly mutant? Is that what you’re trying to say?
But also probably the bacteria is not making the smell for giggles: what is the purpose of creating a smell? Is it a waste product? Is it a intermediate metabolic product? What chemicals do non-smelly mutants make instead?
Also, how could you ever test this ethically? Maybe if the bacteria are not human-obligate, it would work, but otherwise you have to go right to human testing, right? “Put this possibly mutant form of an occasionally pathogenic bacteria on your skin, be careful not to kill it.”
On the CRISRP-based selection method, perhaps this paper might be helpful to look at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Programm…
Essentially, you create your target sequence for the smelly original bacteria, so if you have for example 5 bacteria that look like this:
WWMWW (where W = wildtype original and M = mutant), then after the CRISPR targeting, only the M would survive because the CRISPR will make double stranded cuts in the wild type sequence.
Body odors are usually volatile waste compounds of metabolic reactions, so you’re correct that before a product is available in the market, there would need to be thorough testing done. Also, on the ethicality of the issue, I’m sure that there are many “in vitro” (that is, not on living samples) smell assays that can be conducted (such as growth in media and using a gas chromatogram to look at composition of volatile compounds generated) before moving going straight to human testing! Of course, a lot of this is still being researched, and there are always ethical solutions to everything!!
I second the confusion. How does CRISPR/Cas fit into your selection method?
I also want to say, at the risk of being inflammatory: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with using genome editing to create better probiotics, per se. OF COURSE we have to thoroughly consider environmental safety. And it could very well be that when it comes to creating nicer-smelling armpit bacteria, no amount of risk is worth the benefit. But I recently met a researcher who isolated a gut bacteria that appears to eat only GABA (!!!) and he’s investigating whether people with more of this bacteria in their guts are at higher risk for neuropsychiatric disorders. If it does turn out that our microbiomes have a huge effect on all areas of human health, then probiotics have the potential to prevent a lot of suffering. If, for instance, we discover that people with a certain gut bacteria are predisposed to suffer from debilitating depression, and no naturally occurring bacteria or bacteriophage could remove it from the microbiome, but we could create a bacteria or phage that *could*– I think we’d owe it to ourselves to conduct a thorough risk assessment, rather than dismissing it offhand because it involves GMOs. Nothing is without risk, but the risks of genome editing are not unknowable and in many cases may be worth the benefits. *steps off soapbox*
These strategies for reducing body odor work to destroy everything that is living on the surface of your skin, regardless of whether it is helpful to you or not. As you can probably imagine, this has many negative implications.
I am notoriously unimaginative, but no, I really can’t. I would be happy to have literally nothing living in my armpits. if I need help with anything in there I will send a bacterium an engraved invitation.
NOOOOO DO NOT BRING CRISPR INTO MY SAFE SPACE D:D:D:
NOW YOU MUST SHARE YOUR OPINIONS.
This is an obvious case where going to a third-rate grad school means I don’t know what’s going on, but it is like a legit sci-fi magic tool, right? And clearly it’s dangerous as hell?
Oh no, I’m a postdoc & my problem is I’m currently using it to try & make knockouts of a gene I’m working on in mammalian cell culture and screening/characterizing the clones is a goddamn nightmare, just looking at the very acronym makes me want to die & I didn’t expect to see it on The Toast.
It’s a far safer & easier genome editing tool than any previous technology! I suppose it’s worrisome in the sense that it makes the creeper dreams of dystopian “designer genome” assholes a little bit more technologically feasible, but I think its value as a research tool & possible clinical application outweighs that for the moment.
Ah, tedium. Every scientist’s friend.
Good luck! Minimal inexplicable experimental error!
CRISPR is actually pretty cool and based on things bacteria do anyway. BUT ALSO I AM NOT A MICROBIOLOGIST OR GENETICIST, TECHNICALLY EVEN THOUGH EVERYTHING I DO IS ABOUT MICROBIAL DNA so I can’t really explain it well.
(Every time I talk about genetic manipulation I think my father cries – his senior thesis in college was about creating a bacterium to eat some kind of industrial waste product (it was primarily a theoretical project, as it was for a BS) and most of his paper was just explaining why UV was the best potential mutagen to use and how he came to that conclusion. The idea of precisely cutting and splicing DNA was so far off…)
Ughhh I’m a sea monster of a human: not only do I sweat in basically EVERY climate, my body is terrible at regulating how much I sweat when switching from exertion (read: walking in any temperature) to non-exertion/climate control. I have, at times, resorted to using Certain Dri, as I find it works better than other so-called clinical strength antipersperants, but basically your body’s gonna sweat it out SOMEwhere. If you plug up your armpits, you’ll sweat more down your back or legs.
Edit: Things are marginally — marginally — better since I switched to using various hilariously-named Old Spice variants. (Main favorite: Hawkridge, sweetly musky. Current: Foxcrest, pleasantly pine-y. Never buy it: Bearglove, SMELLS LIKE STARBURST???)
Also, bless her, Edith already did a fair bit of natural deodorant research for us all…not that I’ve managed to try Soapwalla in the several years since then.
Personally, I dislike the smell of deodorants and antiperspirants far more than I dislike body odor, save in some extreme cases. I haven’t worn any for years and I’ve never gotten a complaint, even when I was in Ottawa for the summer (when it was topping 40C, very humid, and I basically sweat waterfalls anytime I was outside). Given that people police me about everything else on a regular basis (fat! hairy legs! bitchy!), I’m pretty sure someone would have added “stank’ to the list if it was applicable.
I find deodorant conversations to be like hair conversations – every body is different, and what works for some doesn’t work for others. I fall into the camp of people who sweat more with antiperspirants and the natural salt deodorants. I tried coconut oil followed by a dusting of baking soda (my husband’s method), but it makes me break out into a rash.
My solution: Soapwalla natural deodorant creme. I cannot apply it to freshly-shaved pits (hellooooo, rash!), so that requires some thinking & timing, but it really does the trick for me as far as absorbing some moisture and eliminating most offensive odor. In a really sweaty moment I can still pit out, but usually without the white rings, so I just buy clothes accordingly and try to embrace my body doing its thing.
I tried natural deodorants for a while. Then I moved to Texas and went through basic training in the middle of summer and that shit wasn’t gonna fly. Everyone switched to using men’s deodorants for the duration. I never got the memo to switch back. Even now that I’m back up north I don’t care. They can pry my Old Spice from my cold, dead fingers.
Speed Stick solid. Green or blue. Clear, doesn’t stain, doesn’t smell sickly sweet, no BO. Done.
NO MENTION of my big question about deodorants:
why, after a couple days of use (despite showering & scrubbing in between), do I get unbearably itchy armpits with Degree, Dove, and…Suave? I think? (I use either Suave or Secret and then when I accidentally buy the wrong one there’s a week of OH GOD MY ARMPITS ARE GOING TO FALL OFF before I realize I screwed it up again, which is why when I find the right one, I buy multi-packs).
i live in florida where the humidity tries to kill you even at 4am and skin-on-skin is a surefire way to gather enough water to fill a pool, so it’s vitally necessary to put a layer of something over my sweatpockets, like armpits, and i’ve been seriously tempted to do my inner-elbows, backs-of-knees, and that spot where my butt turns into thigh. because it’s also too hot to wear a thin layer of cotton over my entire body, and chances are it’s going to get soaked from the humidity-inspired-sweat anyway. i’ve heard that there are other things you can do, like baby powder, but honestly i don’t want clumps of sweaty powder all over the place. i just carry in my purse one of those absorbent cloths they sell to golfers and such for mopping up sweat for when i start feeling a little too damp.
I have the exact same problem except I haven’t figured out exactly which deodorants cause a problem for me! All I know is that the ONLY deodorant I’ve tried that doesn’t lead to this problem is Lady Speed Stick (which, what a dumb name). It’s not a fancy deodorant or anything – it has good old aluminum as the main ingredient – so I don’t know what it is about those others that are so toxic to my skin!
I haven’t used any kind of anti-perspirant for thirty years, what’s all the fuss about?
Speed Stick solid. Green or blue. Clear, doesn't stain, doesn't smell sickly sweet, no BO. Done.
My concern is not only the potential for harm to research participants, but also the exploitation of a genetic resource without proper compensation of the original owners.
It is a very common practice to "harvest" traits from indigenous populations for use in commercial agriculture and pharmaceuticals without ensuring any sort of equitable compensation is given to the people who were the original stewards of the trait. Like smut resistant rice varieties grown in Africa, or salt tolerant potatoes cultivated in the Andes.
I guess I am confused by what you mean by 'original owners'…of the armpit bacteria mutant strains? Like, exploiting people's armpit bacteria?
I think you are missing that a part of informed consent in human trials often refers to the altruistic nature of providing samples, and that one will not necessarily get to profit out of any potential future commercial uses. We're totally on the same page about the informed consent though, don't get me wrong. But this is an important part of how science works, because if you had to compensate every person who provided samples for various studies for every single possible commercial use of the data gained, it would be very difficult to conduct the majority of trials…
Again…we are talking about armpit bacteria, not agricultural resources from indigenous populations.