Scientists mimic intact living skin without animal tests
Scientists have created a viable alternative to animal testing for cosmetics with skin culture grown in a Scottish laboratory.
Researchers at the University of Dundee hope the discovery will transform the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries.
Ten Bio Ltd grew within the universit y’s S chool of Life S ci ences, where f ounders Dr Robyn Hickerson and Dr Michael Conneely were initially developing explant skin models to enable their drug discovery programmes.
After years of progress, the company founders have successfully created a patented, human skin culture system that closely mimics intact, living skin. They have signed a contract with a global cosmetics company.
Ten Bio has develop ed a product, branded “Tenskin ™ ” , where human skin is stretched to an optimal tension to mimic intact, living skin on the body. This provides a state- ofthe- art tool for skin biology research and pharmaceutical and cosmetics testing.
Dr Conneely said: “The skin that covers our body is under tension. This has been known for a long time.
“Other models don’t incorporate this tension and this is why our product is more effective. When skin is removed from the body it contracts as the tension relaxes.
“By stretching the skin to an optimal tension, we have created a model that will allow pharmaceutical and cosmetics companies to generate preclinical data that will be much more predictive of what is likely to be seen in the clinic.”
Although there is a complete ban on testing cosmetics and cosmetics’ ingredients in animals in the EU, animal experimentation is still standard within the pharmaceutical field to help explore whether potential drugs are suitable for testing in humans.
Animal t esting i s often a subject of ethical controversy, with many raising concerns about the reliabilit y of the method. It is hoped the new approach could significantly reduce animal usage for skinrelated research.
Dr Hickerson said, “There is a disconnect between animals and humans when you’re trying to develop therapeutics.
“While animals can ser ve as good analogues to study general principles, they often fail when it comes to specific details due to animal/ human species differences.
“These details matter when it comes to developing safe and effective drugs for humans.
“Upwards of 90 per cent of drugs that are proven safe and effective in animals fail during clinical trials.
“Our model will help reduce this costly failure rate.”
A team at the university had previously made a significant step in understanding the skin disease punctate PPK t hat affects thousands in the UK.