An interview with Cath O’Neill by Kristin Neumann, MyMicrobiome
Cath is coming from the skin research area, being an expert on skin health. During the last years her research focussed on the skins microbiome. With her company SkinBioTherapeutics, Cath translated her research from the University of Manchester into the SkinBiotix® platform. SkinBioTherapeutics is targeting three specific skin healthcare sectors: cosmetics, infection control and eczema.
The SkinBiotix® platform is based on discoveries made with lysates derived from bacteria such as Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium.
I met Cath on the 5thMicrobiome R&D and Business Collaboration Forum in Rotterdam and asked her about the effects of pro- and prebiotics on the skins microbiome:
How do probiotics affect the skins microbiome?
“I don’t think you can change the skins microbiome by putting on probiotics from the gut, but you can certainly change the skins physiology. Lactobacilli are quite anaerobic, so they are probably not going to grow well on the skin. Nevertheless, even as a dead preparation, specific strains of lactobacilli have some remarkable effects on skin”
What about prebiotics for the skin?
“The well-known gut Prebiotics like FOS are not prebiotic on the skin because the skin’s microbiome doesn’t have the enzymatic machinery to digest these prebiotics. Much more research is needed to identify compounds that promote the growth of beneficial bacteria in skins microbiome”
SkinBioTherapeutics is applying dead bacteria on the skin. How is the principle working?
“We use lysates of microorganisms, to me it’s a little bit like vaccines. Vaccines are dead or attenuated bacteria which still elicit an immune response. We know the proteins within the bacterial extracts because we’ve analysed them by MASS-Spec and we know which effects they elicit on the skin. We screened loads of different strains for efficacy and we´ve done a lot of science in vitro.”
