In a new study, scientists at Northwestern University show that their synthetic melanin, mimicking the natural melanin in human skin, can be applied topically to injured skin, where it accelerates wound healing. These effects occur both in the skin itself and systemically in the body. When applied in a cream, the synthetic melanin can protect skin from sun exposure and heals skin injured by sun damage or chemical burns.
Melanin in humans and animals provides pigmentation to the skin, eyes and hair.
The substance protects your cells from sun damage with increased pigmentation in response to sunlight — a process commonly referred to as tanning.
That same pigment in your skin also naturally scavenges free radicals in response to damaging environmental pollution from industrial sources and automobile exhaust fumes.
“People don’t think of their everyday life as an injury to their skin,” said Northwestern University’s Professor Kurt Lu, co-senior author of the study.
“If you walk barefaced every day in the Sun, you suffer a low-grade, constant bombardment of ultraviolet light. This is worsened during peak mid-day hours and the summer season. We know sun-exposed skin ages versus skin protected by clothing, which doesn’t show age nearly as much.”
The skin also ages due to chronological aging and external environmental factors, including environmental pollution.
“All those insults to the skin lead to free radicals which cause inflammation and break down the collagen. That’s one of the reasons older skin looks very different from younger skin,” Professor Lu said.
When Professor Lu and colleagues created the synthetic melanin engineered nanoparticles, they modified the melanin structure to have higher free radical scavenging capacity.
Once applied to the skin, the melanin sits on the surface and is not absorbed into the layers below.
“The synthetic melanin is capable of scavenging more radicals per gram compared to human melanin,” said…
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