Scientists at MIT, Massachusetts General Hospital, Living Proof, and Olivo Labs have developed a new material that can temporarily protect and tighten skin, and smooth wrinkles. With further development, it could also be used to deliver drugs to help treat skin conditions such as eczema and other types of dermatitis.
The material, a
«It’s an invisible layer that can provide a barrier, provide cosmetic improvement, and potentially deliver a drug locally to the area that’s being treated. Those three things together could really make it ideal for use in humans," says Daniel Anderson, an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering and a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES).
Anderson is one of the authors of a paper describing the polymer in the May 9 online issue of Nature Materials. Robert Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT and a member of the Koch Institute, is the paper’s senior author, and the paper’s lead author is Betty Yu SM ’98, ScD ’02, former vice president at Living Proof. Langer and Anderson are
Mimicking skin
As skin ages, it becomes less firm and less elastic — problems that can be exacerbated by sun exposure. This impairs skin’s ability to protect against extreme temperatures, toxins, microorganisms, radiation, and injury. About 10 years ago, the research team set out to develop a protective coating that could restore the properties of healthy skin, for both medical and cosmetic applications.
«We started thinking about how we might be able to control the properties of skin by coating it with polymers that would impart beneficial effects," Anderson says. «We also wanted it to be invisible and comfortable.»
The researchers created a library of more than 100 possible polymers, all of which contained a chemical structure known as siloxane — a chain of alternating atoms of silicon and oxygen. These polymers can be assembled into a network arrangement known as a
«It has to have the right optical properties, otherwise it won’t look good, and it has to have the right mechanical properties, otherwise it won’t have the right strength and it won’t perform correctly," Langer says.
The
«Creating a material that behaves like skin is very difficult," says Barbara Gilchrest, a dermatologist at MGH and an author of the paper. «Many people have tried to do this, and the materials that have been available up until this have not had the properties of being flexible, comfortable, nonirritating, and able to conform to the movement of the skin and return to its original shape.»
The XPL is currently delivered in a
High performance
The researchers performed several studies in humans to test the material’s safety and effectiveness. In one study, the XPL was applied to the
In another study, the XPL was applied to forearm skin to test its elasticity. When the
The researchers also tested the material’s ability to prevent water loss from dry skin. Two hours after application, skin treated with the novel XPL suffered much less water loss than skin treated with a
PL had retained much more water. None of the study participants reported any irritation from wearing XPL.
«I think it has great potential for both cosmetic and noncosmetic applications, especially if you could incorporate antimicrobial agents or medications," says Thahn Nga Tran, a dermatologist and instructor at Harvard Medical School, who was not involved in the research.
Living Proof has spun out the XPL technology to Olivo Laboratories, LLC, a new startup formed to focus on the further development of the XPL technology. Initially, Olivo’s team will focus on medical applications of the technology for treating skin conditions such as dermatitis.
Other authors of the paper include Fernanda Sakamoto and Rox Anderson of MGH;
