OneSkin
Allesandra Zonari, Chief Scientific Officer for OneSkin, gave a pretty standard overview of OneSkin’s technology, products and test results. I don’t think this has changed much in the past year or so. The company seems to be doing well (no fund raising planned), the products (they now have 4 products) have been well received and are selling well, and the entire team seems to be enjoying their new lives in San Francisco, where OneSkin is based now (having moved from Brazil).
What I found interesting was some of the information conveyed in discussions I had with Allesandra after the presentation that I think people may be interested in, because of the frequent discussions around skin and hair health here.
I asked her briefly what her opinion on use of tretinoin/Retin A products and the potential for stem cell exhaustion (because tretinoin ramps up the skin cell turnover) and whether that might be a problem. She said she was concerned about this, and especially among younger women aged 20 or so who might be using it for many decades. She was less concerned about use in older people.
OneSkin has identified some new peptides that seem to be very helpful in growing hair, so they are now investigating that as a new product area, so if that early research is validated in small clinical studies, we seem likely to see a product in this area in the next year or two.
I also asked Allesandra about their research they published on their OS1/Peptide 14 in which they also tested Rapamycin and compared results. We’ve discussed this in the past on the forums, but I had not had a chance to talk to the founders about the research.
Of course, they just picked a rapamycin cream solution formulation that had been published in previous research (and made no attempt to see what the optimal dosing level for rapamycin in skin aging might be, as should be expected). This was an in vitro test also, so its not clear exactly how close the results would have been in an invivo / human study.
The rapamycin, as was used in the dose level specified, resulted in a reduction of skin senescent cells that was approximately the same as was seen with the OS-1/Peptide 14 product from OneSkin.
Additionally, Rapamycin reduced the biological age of the skin samples by about 2 years, compared to a 2.5 year reduction in biological age by the OS-1 Peptide (they used some skin biological clock measures, I’m not sure how well-validated those clocks are).
The biggest difference between the OS-1 Peptide and the rapamycin skin cream was (as might be expected) was that the Peptide OS1/Pep14 resulted in growth of collagen and epidural thickness. Rapamycin did not do this, but rapamycin is a compound that slows cell division and growth, so of course rapamycin would not be expected to do this.
Given the recent and ongoing research into the heterogeneity of senescent cells, it seems reasonable to expect that the OS-1 peptide and rapamycin topical cream would target different types of senescent cells (they are very different types of compound after all) and I’m thinking that the best solution today for improving the biological age (and slowing senescence) would likely be to combine both approaches.
That is, use the OneSkin OS-1 product which reduces inflammation, and senescent cells, and helps increase collagen and epidermis thickness, but also use rapamycin cream (with other potential senolytics like dasatinib, etc. to help reduce further the senescent cell burden, and inflammation. So, thats the approach I’m planning to take.
Related discussions:
Here: Reversing Skin Aging at the Cellular Level (Carolina Reis Oliveira and Alessandra Zonari, OneSkin)
Here: How to Reverse Skin Aging - #78 by AlexKChen
Here: Senolytics Topically Administered to Skin for Antiaging Effects
Here: Rapamycin May Slow Skin Aging (Drexel U. Study)
Here: DIY Rapamycin skin cream
