That’s the premise of a new dating website, ScientificMatch.com. With a mere trace of genetic material, you can find a partner with whom you’ll have, among other benefits, better sex, a higher chance of a monogamous relationship, and healthier children, the site says. Could romantic bliss really be just a cheek swab away?

ScientificMatch founder and President Eric Holzle has bet $50,000 of his own money on the answer being “yes.” The science is based on research suggesting that people prefer mates whose immune systems are dissimilar from their own—and that the preference can literally be sniffed out. The most oft-cited study, and the one that initially inspired Holzle to start his service, was conducted by Swiss researcher Claus Wedekind in 1995. In the study, some 49 female students smelled T-shirts worn by male students for two consecutive nights. The ones they judged to be most pleasant and sexy were the ones worn by men whose immune systems—or whose major histocompatibility complex (MHC), a collection of genes that play an important role in immune system functions—were most different from their own. Another study, conducted in 2006 at the University of New Mexico involving 48 couples, concluded that dissimilar MHC profiles led to benefits touted by ScientificMatch, including a more satisfying sex life and less chance of cheating by women.

From an evolutionary standpoint, it would make sense that a woman would want to find a man with whom she can produce healthy offspring, and a varied MHC likely means a baby with a more robust immune system. A $995 fee (already slashed from the original $1,995 the site was charging when it launched in December 2007) buys a lifetime membership. For that, ScientificMatch will examine your DNA, then give you possible love matches based on your MHC.

“We have over 40 peer-reviewed studies that support the method we use,” says Holzle, 43, a lifelong bachelor who is still looking for a mate. “This is the only scientifically proven method for matching people together.”

Since the self-funded company launched, Holzle, a mechanical engineer by training, says business has been “great” but offers no specifics, except that lovelorn customers have been pretty evenly split between men and women. So far, ScientificMatch is available only to residents of the greater Boston area, parts of New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. Holzle intends to expand nationally, but has no concrete plans for doing so. Instead of advertising, he has relied on press accounts to get his story out.

“The first thing they teach you in engineering school is that the engineer’s role is to take what scientists have learned and transform it into what people want to use and enjoy,” he says. Yet Holzle might be a bit ahead of the science, cautions evolutionary biologist Craig Roberts, a lecturer at the University of Liverpool who has been researching mating preferences since 2000. For starters, research has not definitively established that humans prefer mates with dissimilar MHC, he says. In both the lab and in population studies that measure the levels of genetic similarity of actual couples, evidence of disassortative mating in terms of MHC is mixed at best, Roberts says. Further, the website, although an intriguing idea, Roberts says, ignores other factors that have been found to influence mate choice, such as height, body shape, symmetrical features, and, perhaps most importantly, facial preferences. “My own work shows that people prefer faces of people who share similar MHC, not dissimilar MHC,” he says.

 

Even assuming the science supports ScientificMatch’s premise, its main selling point—finding a person with whom you’ll share incredible “chemistry”—is questionable given that MHC is highly polymorphic. In other words, the site will show you matches for individuals whose immune systems are dissimilar from yours, but most people in the population have dissimilar immune systems anyway. “Think how difficult it is to obtain organ donors and recipients,” Roberts says. “The genes physicians use to achieve this aim are exactly the same genes that this company is using. People using this site are therefore paying thousands of dollars to exclude a very small proportion of the people on the company’s book. I don’t think it’s worth the money.”

Holzle counters that, on average, a person would be deemed romantically compatible with about 20 percent of the population (meaning their MHC is similar with 80 percent), but adds that the percentage can vary wildly for individuals.

The site is not a bad idea, but is missing a crucial component, says Dr. Rachel Herz, author of The Scent of Desire and a visiting professor at Brown University Medical School who has conducted extensive research on smell and emotion. What ScientificMatch fails to take into account is the behavioral or psychological response to the scent, or in other words, the act of smelling the sweaty T-shirt. “The behavior part is more important than the genetic part,” she says. “My research shows that women’s response of, ‘I like this guy’s smell,’ is the most important feature of physical attraction.”

Holzle admits the science is in its infancy, but says the methodology will be adapted as the science advances. Until then, ScientificMatch is covering its bases by also using the old-fashioned matchmaking methods: It encourages its users to post pictures, take a personality test, and fill out a personal preference survey. Fond of long walks on the beach, anyone?