Skin Samples, and Beauty: Michael Polansky and Lady Gaga Chase the Next Breakthrough in Skincare
The co-founders of Outer Biosciences are banking on advances in live tissue research to develop novel compounds for the beauty industry.
Outer Biosciences co-founders Michael Polansky and Lady Gaga. Photo: Getty
A biotech startup co-founded in 2020 by tech executive Michael Polansky and his fiancée, Lady Gaga, is using artificial intelligence and living human tissue to develop the next generation of skincare ingredients.
The company, Outer Biosciences, claims it has found a way to preserve skin specimens for up to a month, generating data that could help identify novel compounds with commercial potential for the beauty industry.
I’m excited to introduce Outer Biosciences and Yuna,
“I’m excited to introduce Outer Biosciences and Yuna, the ex vivo human skin platform our team has been building for the past several years,” Polansky said Saturday in a LinkedIn post announcing the company’s emergence from stealth mode. “Yuna keeps living, full-thickness skinecture preserved.”
Researchers have long searched for better ways to study how tissue responds to new skincare products before testing them on humans. Outer Biosciences is using donated skin, most of it obtained from plastic surgery procedures, to conduct research into how human tissue functions and heals.
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The company, based just outside Boston in Malden, Massachusetts, places tissue samples on the Yuna platform and subjects them to controlled experiments, allowing researchers to observe biological changes over time and feed the resulting data into its AI system.
The process creates a feedback loop
The process creates a feedback loop. AI predicts which compounds may influence specific skin functions, researchers test those compounds on tissue samples, and the results are channeled back into the AI system to improve future predictions.
The approach is reportedly beginning to pay off. Polansky says four of Outer Biosciences’ six lead compounds appear likely to reach commercialization.
Source: www.inc.com
