The company believed the personalised skin model, dubbed Mirror Skin, could offer tremendous potential to understand skin on an individual level.
For instance, it can help to understand individual skin responses to stimuli like UV radiation and identify effective ingredients for specific individuals.
Furthermore, it is a tool for research on various skin structures like subcutaneous fat, nerves, hair follicles, and sebaceous glands.
According to researchers, Mirror Skin has demonstrated a more accurate reflection of actual skin structure compared to existing skin models.
“The constructed skin organoids not only more faithfully reflect the structure of real skin compared to existing cultured skin models but also reflect the characteristics of the skin of the urine donor.”
The researchers explained that urine was used as the source of cells for creating iPS cells for a few key reasons.
Firstly, Urine can be collected easily and without any discomfort for the donor.
This is in contrast to other methods of obtaining cells, such as skin biopsies, which can be more invasive and painful.
Furthermore, urine is a readily available source of cells, making it an efficient and cost-effective starting point for research.
This was presented as a poster at the 34th International Federation of Societies of Cosmetic Chemists (IFSCC) Academic Conference held October 14 to 17, in Brazil.
It went on to win the 2024 IFSCC Johann Wiechers Poster Award, which was presented to Tomoyuki Iwanaga of POLA Chemical Industries.
A faithful replication
The researchers highlight that the Mirror Skin model they developed accurately reflects the structure of real human skin with essential skin structures.
“When the structure of the mirror skin constructed in this study was observed, it was confirmed that the epidermis was in the centre and the dermis was on the outside, and that it contained essential structures of skin, such as the epidermis, dermis, hair follicles, and subcutaneous fat tissue. In addition, the presence of fibroblasts, basement membrane, melanocytes, nerves, and sebaceous glands around the hair follicles was also confirmed.”
Under an electron microscope, the model was revealed to have revealed that the collagen fibres similar to those on human skin.
Furthermore, the researchers exposed the mode UV radiation and compared the gene expression changes to those observed in the donor’s actual skin when exposed to UV light.
The changes in gene expression in mirror skin were found to correlate with the strength of the UV response of the donor’s actual skin.
This suggested that Mirror Skin was not just a generic skin model, but one that accurately reflects the specific way an individual’s skin reacts to environmental factors like UV exposure.
Crucial to the future of personalisation
The firm believes the development of Mirror Skin technology represented a significant advancement in personalised skin care.
“Mirror Skin will be a central technology in future research and development for personalised cosmetics, such as identifying the causes of skin problems that are likely to occur in each individual and finding active ingredients that are suitable for each individual.
“In addition, because it is possible to reproduce subcutaneous fat, nerves, hair follicles, sebaceous glands, etc., it is expected to be widely used as a tool to dramatically advance research on these skin structures.
It concluded: “Pola Chemical Industries regards Mirror Skin as a core technology in the field of dermatology and will continue to focus on developing and utilising new technologies.”