Senescent cells are damaging to tissue function and health when they linger and grow in number, as becomes the case with age. They contribute to the chronic inflammation of aging via their signaling, the senescence-associated secretory phenotype. In skin, senescent cells are most likely responsible for a sizable fraction of the more problematic later life skin aging, in the 50s and on. It is less clear and less likely that they have much do to with the changes seen from the late 20s into the 40s.
The primary advantage inherent in targeting the mechanisms of aging specifically in skin is that the regulatory path to market for cosmetic treatments is much, much shorter than the alternative Investigational New Drug option. Thus OneSkin is making available a topical senolytic treatment that selectively destroys senescent cells in skin, and is doing so years in advance of FDA approval of any of the programs aiming to destroy senescent cells throughout the body. (That said, the senolytic treatment of dasatinib and quercetin, shown to destroy senescent cells in humans in a clinical trial, and capable of producing significant reversal of aging and age-related disease in mice, is very much available to any sufficiently motivated individual).
It would be interesting to see concrete data on the size of the effect produced by the OneSkin treatment, but that data isn’t available yet. Is this approach definitively better than the suppression of skin senescence achieved via long term topical use of rapamycin, for example? One would hope so, but we’ll have to wait and see. This lack of published, detailed data on effects in humans at the time of product launch is fairly characteristic of the supplement and cosmetics industries, and it makes it hard for the public at large to tell the difference between groups that are earnest and addressing a useful mechanism versus those that are not.
OneSkin launches topical senetherapeutic skin treatment
OneSkin is a longevity company on a mission to transform the way we think about skin. Today the company is launching OneSkin, a topical supplement containing a proprietary peptide, OS-01. Designed to reduce skin’s biological age, OneSkin claims to improve the skin barrier, support DNA damage repair and prevent the accumulation of senescent cells. OneSkin launched in 2016 as a biotech startup after acceptance into IndieBio, one of the world’s leading science accelerators.
“Our goal was to develop a product that extends skinspan, the period of time your skin is healthy and youthful. Our roots are in longevity science and we saw a need to shift the current paradigm. Instead of short-term fixes that focus purely on aesthetics, we’re targeting the root cause of aging and optimizing skin health on a molecular level. We believe what we put on our skin should be safe, effective, and help to maximize our human potential.”
OneSkin operates end-to-end research and development in-house with a team of experts in stem cell biology, skin regeneration, tissue engineering, biochemistry, bioinformatics, molecular biology, immunology, and aging. They measure skinspan in with MolClock – OneSkin’s first skin-specific molecular clock – and with skin aging modelling, using a proprietary technology and lab process which includes growing 3D human skin weekly and measuring how various products and ingredients influence gene expression of the many genes associated with aging and longevity.
“As we age, senescent cells begin to accumulate in our skin tissues. The accumulation of these cells can contribute to an increased presence of wrinkles, susceptibility to skin cancer, and a damaged skin barrier. Beyond its impact on skin, when left to linger, senescent cells send pro-inflammatory signals to the rest of the body, increasing the risk of age-related
diseases.” Preventing the accumulation of senescent cells reduces skin’s biological age as measured via MolClock, as well as leading to increased epidermal thickness, improved skin structure through increased collagen production and hyaluronic acid expression, maintained skin homeostasis and cell vitality.