Scientists at a Cambridge biotech company want to harness our pigmentation machinery to darken or lighten skin.
Constanza Villalba
The onset of the grim Boston winter marks the end of sun tanning season. But if scientists with a seven-month-old biotech company in Cambridge, MA are successful, we may be able to tan without the help of the sun’s rays or even tanning salons.
Magen Biosciences is developing compounds that would alter skin color by specifically targeting the molecular pathway involved in the tanning process. Existing tanning products found in drugstores simply dye the skin.
The startup is commercializing the work of David Fisher, director of the melanoma program at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Fisher has spent much of his career elucidating and manipulating the cellular machinery responsible for skin pigmentation.
His most recent publication, in an issue of Nature from last month, describes the use of a chemical called forskolin to artificially induce tanning in mice that are normally unable to tan.
Forskolin promotes the production of melanin, the molecule in skin that can form a protective barrier against ultraviolet light and is responsible for pigmentation. The recent study in Nature reported that mice whose skin was treated with the substance were less likely than control mice to develop sun damage or skin cancer when exposed to ultraviolet light.
Scientists at Magen Biosciences hope to take that research one step further and develop compounds that can do the same in humans. What’s more, they’re developing compounds that not only darken skin but also lighten it.
“Existing companies are mostly based on reformulations of the same active ingredients,” says Brian Gallagher, president and CEO of Magen Biosciences. “We have chosen to understand the science behind pigmentation.”
The company is now using human skin samples to screen libraries of compounds for agents that act on the pathways involved in pigmentation. The goal is to develop a product that can be used topically or even taken as a pill.
Skin protector
Skin darkening products could have enormous public health implications because skin cancer is so pervasive, says Fisher, who sits on the company’s board of directors. People could use such products to boost their melanin production, enhancing their natural barrier to harmful ultraviolet light. Essentially, they could end up with a tan without needing to bake in the sun.
Skin-lightening products also have potential applications, such as treating hyperpigmentation disorders, says Gallagher. As examples, he lists melasma, a condition that causes dark facial splotching, usually in women; solar lentigos, or liver spots; and post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation, a complication of laser treatments.
Gallagher adds that in some Asian countries, where light skin is viewed as a sign of beauty, women often disfigure themselves using unsafe skin bleaching products containing hydroquinone. (The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently proposed banning all over-the-counter sales of hydroquinone-based products.) A safer alternative would be potentially valuable, he says.
Zalfa Abdel-Malek, a researcher at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio whose work is related to Fisher’s, says that there are several candidate compounds other than forskolin that could be used to turn on or off the natural pigmentation process. Still, she warns that it’s too soon to say whether any such compounds would be safe to use in humans.
Forskolin, she says, “could also affect other cell types in the skin because it activates an enzyme that is expressed in almost every cell type in the body.” That could mean side effects.
Magen Biosciences has secured $17 million in venture capital financing and has seven employees, including five research scientists.