Scientists created cheese from human toe, belly button and bacteria

Cheese has stinky smell. But, cheeses at one exhibit at the Science Gallery Dublin in Trinity College Dublin come from an especially smelly source -- human toe, armpit, belly button and mouth bacteria, CBS News reports.

The team took different microbial strains; next, they identified microbes that made up that person’s specific scent .

Then, the cheese making process began. Milk was added to the microbe sample, and spoiled with a bacteria called Lactobacillus. When the sample curdled, the team separated the clumps and aged them with yeast to make different varieties of cheese.

"I'm really excited about things that sometimes are a little bit gross, a little bit disgusting,” microbiologist Christina Agapakis, who worked on the project, admitted at a Pop Tech presentation about the human cheese project.

"People were really nervous and uncomfortable," she said. "Then they smell the cheese, and they'll realize that it just smells like a normal cheese."

But, the creators say that you can’t snack on this kind of cheese.

"This isn't cheese for eating," Agapakis said at Pop Tech. "This is cheese for thinking."

Follow NEWS.am Medicine on Facebook and Twitter