I am interested in why people differ in their sense of taste and smell and how inborn genotype contributes to these differences. For instance, there are medicines that taste extremely bitter to some people whereas others perceive them as tasteless or nearly so. These differences are due in part to genetic variation in the bitter taste receptor genes and these genotype differences can differ based on ancestry. Recently we have been studying person-to-person differences in the loss of taste and smell as a result of COVID-19 as a part of the Global Consortium for Chemosensory Research.