Summary

Today we discuss the importance of addressing the root cause of skin aging and the role of senescent cells in the aging process. We also talk about the skin barrier and how it can become compromised. Carolina shares her thoughts on retinol and the importance of listening to your skin's reaction to products. OneSkin measures skin aging through the epigenetic signature of the skin. OneSkin has developed a peptide called OS1 that has been shown to reduce the age of the skin by 2.5 years in humans. The peptide works by reducing the load of senescent cells and promoting collagen production. OneSkin is constantly researching and developing new products to target skin aging and are exploring the potential of using their peptide for other inflammatory conditions. OneSkin believes in the importance of staying at the forefront of scientific research and innovation to provide the most effective products for skin aging.

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Takeaways

• Understanding the aging process and addressing it can have a massive impact.

• Senescent cells play a key role in the aging process and can be targeted to reverse damage and restore a more youthful state.

• Maintaining and strengthening the skin barrier is crucial for overall skin health.

• Investing in high-quality products and addressing internal factors can lead to better long-term results for skin health. OneSkin measures skin aging through the epigenetic signature of the skin.

• Their peptide, OS1, has been shown to reduce the age of the skin by 2.5 years in humans.

• OneSkin is constantly researching and developing new products to target skin aging and exploring the potential of using their peptide for other inflammatory conditions.

• Staying at the forefront of scientific research and innovation is a priority for OneSkin.

Chapters

00:00 Carolina's Background and Interest in Skin Health

02:52 The Impact of Aging on Health and Disease

11:34 Targeting Senescent Cells for Reversing Damage

13:01 The Importance of the Skin Barrier

25:57 Investing in Long-Term Skin Health

29:49 Measuring Skin Aging and the Use of Devices

36:13 Sun Exposure and SPF Recommendations

40:01 The Age-Reversing Effects of OS1 Peptide

45:08 The Potency of the Eye Cream for Delicate Skin

48:17 Exploring the Potential of the Peptide for Inflammatory Conditions

50:37 Future Possibilities: Supplements and Injectables

52:26 Red Light Therapy and Personal Protocol

55:18 Staying at the Forefront of Scientific Research and Innovation

[00:00:00.320] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

Carolina, it's such a pleasure to have you here with me today.

[00:00:02.820] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yeah, thanks for having me, Kayla. Super excited about this conversation.

[00:00:06.370] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

Same, same. I mean, today we're going to dive deep into all things skin, health, one skin. But before we do that, will you talk a little bit about your background and how you got interested in this area of work?

[00:00:19.110] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yeah. So I was always interested about science since I was young. And what fascinated me was to understand how things work in our body from a biological standpoint. So we understand how our tissues function and when something starts not functioning well and that leads to diseases, that's when we can come up with hypotheses on how to fix what's not working well. And to me, I always loved the idea of using biology to help people, to live better, to have better quality of life, and understanding everything at a molecular level really fascinated me. So I studied biochemistry for my undergrad, and I was always interested in researching something that I could see a clear translation. So for my PhD, I specifically chose the field of stem cell biology and tissue engineering. Stem cell biology is fascinating because there are so many potential applications. There is this ability of reproduce our, you know, human organs in the lab, and there are potential, you know, types of therapies that you can do with stem cells. And I could see that researching that, I could create something and that could be translated to people. So out of my PhD, I started a company back in Brazil in the field of growing human tissues in the lab, initially to replace animal testing.

[00:02:09.470] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

And eventually that first company didn't work out. But we got an opportunity to move to the US in 2016, and that's when we started to focus more on aging and skin aging. And it's interesting because as a scientist, when I was thinking, okay, I want to use science to help people, initially, I always thought that I needed to find cure for disease in order to help people. And when I started to study aging, and realizing that the main cause of most of the diseases that we're looking for cure is actually the aging process, and if we can intervene earlier and stay healthier for longer by treating aging, I can actually have like, a bigger impact than treating diseases when things are already not working. So it's interesting looking back, because to me, that's where I feel that I can make not only the most impact, but I feel that I'm doing something that I'm really passionate about myself, because personally, I'm so passionate about enjoying life at the fullest. And I can't imagine that aging eventually will limit me of doing things that I love. So, long story short, I think this whole journey of trying to understand how I can utilize science to create something led me to what we are doing at one skin today.

[00:03:38.370] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

And we can discuss more about what a skin does. But that's kind of how the journey evolved.

[00:03:48.760] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

I love that, and I love your passion behind it and just your commitment, because it's most certainly, I think, the most fascinating industry. I mean, we both get to work in this longevity space, right? I mean, what is cooler than being able to potentially increase human lifespan and at a minimum, really change the way that we age? Because I'm so excited that people are now thinking, you know, I feel like a lot of people, I haven't been to, like, a standard doctor, obviously. I actually employ doctors at my clinic, but I haven't had anyone ever say, like, we don't say like, oh, that's aging. Right. But that's such a common thing to be told to a patient, like, oh, I have aches or pains or can't sleep, and they're like, oh, that's aging. I mean, man, am I excited that we are getting to a place in the near future. I think that that's not going to be just the answer, the automatic answer.

[00:04:40.170] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yeah, exactly. And people just accepting this as normal, right? Oh, that's aging. And it is how it is, and you basically need to live with it. Like, there is, you know, there are a few things that you can do to treat the symptoms, but I think the idea that you can actually reverse aging and basically restore that healthy and young state is not something that the regular healthcare is advocating yet. And I think that things are shifting now. And the more that we understanding from biological standpoint that this is possible, the more we can actually bring awareness to people and start being more proactive on the choices that we make and utilizing all of those new technologies and science innovation that can help us to do that.

[00:05:39.460] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

Absolutely. On that topic, do you believe that we can reverse the damage, or do you think we're just able to slow it? And what does that kind of look like?

[00:05:50.860] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yeah, that's a great question. We can definitely reverse the damage. We have done it in the lab, like, many, many times. So one of the main breakthroughs in science was when a scientist reprogrammed an adult cell and made that adult cell to go back to embryonic state. And this led the scientists to win the Nobel Prize. So basically, we know that during this process, we are basically reversing aging and reversing damage. So it's very interesting how we can do that, it's basically activating genes that are in young cells and deactivating genes that are present in older cells. So it's basically manipulating our gene expression. So we know we can do this in the lab. Obviously, how we translate this to people, to humans and different products and applications, is a different challenge. But it is possible to activate our cell's ability to repair damage and make that damage reversal possible.

[00:07:03.580] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

So when it comes to actually activating, essentially, gene expression for cellular repair, we hear a lot about autophagy.

[00:07:11.890] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Right?

[00:07:12.460] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

Is that included in that? And if. Is there one specific gene that we're trying to turn on, or is it a plethora of genes?

[00:07:20.100] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yeah. So, in the end, this repair system is an. Is a very intricate process. So there are several, like, signaling pathways that we need activate and others that we need to suppress. So usually we want to activate the DNA repair pathways, we want to deactivate inflammation pathways, pathways that leads to cellular senescence, for example. And we want to activate autophagy. So usually it's a combination of things that we want to activate not only one gene or one pathway, specifically. Specifically.

[00:08:02.180] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

Well, thank you for that. One thing that I want to really be excited about is your team is all female founded. So how did you guys meet? And first of all, so exciting, but how did you guys meet and decide to work on this?

[00:08:15.670] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

So we met when we were doing our masters and PhD in the same lab back in Brazil. So we are all Brazilians, and we got together because we shared this passion for science, and we want to translate. We want to get that science that we were researching out of academia and create something that we would see a tangible impact. So out of our expertise, we got together and we started this first company in Brazil, and eventually we came here to the US. And our expertise involves, like, stem cell biology, tissue engineering. Alessandra, that's my co founder and leads the scientific team. Her PhD was specifically skin regeneration. And then we also have Mariana that has a background more in bioinformatics, genomics. So we combine different types of expertise to create this very complex platform that we developed at one skin. But I think it's very exciting to see that scientists are starting companies and be able to bring their own science to consumers, because it's not the norm. Right. A lot of the companies that we see out there are started mainly by marketers and definitely being women led team. I think I feel so privileged to have such powerful women around me to be an inspiration for other women out there.

[00:09:56.150] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

I think we can definitely do more and show our talent. And we understand a lot of the needs better as well. So, yeah, super proud of our team.

[00:10:09.130] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

I'm so proud of your team, too. I love that. Okay, so let's talk about skin aging. What is it? How does skin really age? And what are some of the factors that can speed up or slow down? Just lifestyle stuff.

[00:10:25.680] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yeah. So skin aging is mainly caused by two process. Two processes. One, what we call intrinsic aging, that's based on the internal aging process. Our cells divide, and eventually some of those cells would die. That's the natural aging. And there is also the extrinsic aging that is caused by the environmental factors that we are exposed on a daily basis. Daily basis. Uv exposure is the main one. But obviously, we have blue light, different types of radiation, pollution, smoking. So your lifestyle, in the end, what we see from this both process is that this will lead to accumulation of damage in our proteins, in our cells. This would lead to production of free radicals. And in the end, these two processes, they will lead to the formation of these old cells that we call senescence cells. And we believe that senescent cells accumulation is one of the key drivers of aging, because once you have this pool of senescent cells, they start secreting inflammation, and they induce these healthy cells around to age faster. For those who are not familiar with senescent or zombie cells, which is a more common term, we like to compare with a rotten apple in a bunch.

[00:11:57.240] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

So that senescent cells is spoiling the healthy cells to age faster. And once we have these and you have more inflammation, what happens is that we see collagen break down. We see the signs of aging as sagging, loss of firmness, wrinkles, and even your skin barrier gets weaker. And that's all because something is happening internally. Right. Those old cells are accumulating, and they are causing these visual effects that we are seeing. What is interesting about this process is that we can actually target specifically senescent cells. And if you reduce the number of those old cells in their skin, what happens is that we can make space for the healthy cells to replicate again. They start to function again, producing collagen. And we can basically bring your skin to a younger state. So they are not only looking like younger skin, they are behaving like younger skin. And it all happens basically from the inner layers of the skin. And that reflects on the appearance of the skin. So that's, for us, a very interesting approach to target aging, because we are actually addressing the root cause instead of what most products that are claiming to be anti aging out there, that they are targeting the symptoms of aging, just the surface, and they can deliver short term results, but they are missing the.

[00:13:39.820] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

The underlying cause.

[00:13:41.820] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

And what layer of the skin are these senescent cells living in?

[00:13:46.190] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yeah, they are in different layers. They are on the epidermal, but I would say that where they have the most impact is on the dermal layer. So the dermal layer is the layer that contains fibroblasts that produce collagen and gives the firmness and the structure of the skin. So we want to make sure that we are being able to decrease the amount of senescent cells in the dermal layer because they will reflect in the epidermal layer. There is obviously a very tight connection and communication between these two layers. But from the inner layers, if the skin is healthier, this will replicate on the, on the outer layers of the skin.

[00:14:34.660] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

Wonderful. Is there a correlation between having lower levels of inflammation in your body and inflammation levels in the skin?

[00:14:43.340] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

100%. I think inflammation can come from different sources. There is inflammation that can come from your skin and affect your internal body. There is inflammation that can come from your internal body and affect your skin. So it's definitely a two way, you know, street process. And I think what is interesting about that, then, when we're talking about skin aging, is that obviously you want to look better and you want to maintain your skin health, but it's the consequences that you are also helping your internal health. So that's one of the things that we are really passionate about at one skin, is that it's not only about your skin, is about your overall health. And I think a good example of how internal inflammation can, you know, reflect in your skin is obviously your diet. If it's, you know, if you're eating a lot of processed food, like sugar, and the things that lead to a lot of inflammation, this can definitely show in your skin. If you are in high stress, your skin can break out. So it's so connected and it's beautiful. As I was saying before, like, when you understand how you can tackle this problem or this challenge from, like, different angles.

[00:16:06.210] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I'm so bothered by the cosmetics and, like, I guess some of the products that are on the market because it saddens me when I see a woman or anyone struggling with skin issues, right. And they're just buying, you know, product after product after product. And it's like, well, first you have to also be focused on what's going on internally because it's a symptom. Right. It's a signal. It's a sign that something is going wrong. That could be a plethora of things.

[00:16:36.560] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yeah.

[00:16:36.840] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

From nutrient deficiencies to gut health, all these things, inflammation. But it just makes me sad that that's the world that we kind of live in, that, you know, I mean, it's. It's. You have to focus on the internal, and then products like yours are amazing. Cause you really are still focused on the internal.

[00:16:53.390] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Right.

[00:16:53.570] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

It's still, like the root cause of the problem. But just if, you know, you're listening to this, there is a root cause of skin issues, you know, even psoriasis, eczema. These are inflammatory conditions. Right. So, um, yeah, that just bothers me so much. I. Everyone's always like, oh, well, I have acne. What product can I use to put on it? I'm like, none. You can't. You got to fix the root cause if you want to really, you know, have great skin for the long term.

[00:17:20.290] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yeah. And I think this all goes back to the, you know, the mindset that a lot of the consumers have. They want the quick fixes, right? They want something that they put on their skin, and it solves immediately. And although some products can give promote, like, a relief, eventually that issue can come back because, again, the underlying cause is not being treated. So that's why I love this whole holistic approach of understanding, again, how everything is connected and doing this treatment in steps, making sure that you revisit all of your lifestyle and test yourself and measure, because everyone is so different. Our skin reacts differently to different products. People have sensitization to different types of, you know, ingredients. So it's a, it's a unique journey in some ways. And I think people just needed to look for, again, something that can help them for the long term.

[00:18:27.700] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

Yeah, absolutely.

[00:18:28.770] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

I agree.

[00:18:29.120] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

And overall, like, and I know that some people are caught up on the price, whether it be for testing or, like, really high quality products. But at the end of the day, if you really think about and add up all of the funds that you spend on trying out different products that don't work, you could just have done the test, optimized your internal and, you know, really invested in super high quality products and you would get a better result.

[00:18:50.350] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yeah. And to me, that's something that, it's so, so important for me. And it's interesting because obviously, you know, one skin, it's mainly about the skin, but I'm obsessed about my health, and I think where I found this fulfilling journey with one skin is that I saw the connection between, you know, skin and health, but I see this band that I make on testing or supplements or even in skin product as an investment in my health. So to me, this is number one priority, and that's probably not the same for everyone. But I think those who are in this journey of trying to optimize your lifestyle for longevity, to have the. The largest amount of, like, years in good health, I think this all will pay off so much in the future. And in the end, you could be saved money as well. Because if you make the right choices, right now, you are saving so much with things like surgeries or like invasive procedures. Right. That can cause so much more down the line, and mainly for skin. I mean, if you treat your skin when you're still you with a healthy and young skin, you can maintain that skin with that high quality resilience for much longer, and you can push those treatments for the future, like treatments that are more invasive and expensive.

[00:20:28.080] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

So I think it's just like having this more big picture view of how this impacts your health and life in the long term again.

[00:20:40.270] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

Absolutely. I mean, our skin is an organ. So if we're thinking about how can we slow down aging of the heart or optimize our cardiac health, I mean, skin is the same thing. So literally should be treated like any other organ with much care and thought.

[00:20:56.940] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yeah. And that's the thing that I think people don't realize or don't think through those lens yet. I think we obviously want to see our skin looking good. But one of the things that happens with the aging process is that our skin will get thinner, our skin barrier will get weaker, and we see how that can compromise our lifestyle, because maybe you remember your grandparents, how thin their skin is, how delicate it becomes and fragile. And a lot of times, that is a sign that your skin is not so resilient anymore. It's not protecting your body so well. There is an increased accumulation of inflammation in your skin that ends up elevating your internal levels of inflammation. So when you see someone with a very fragile skin, it's a sign that there's probably inflammation in their skin, it's affecting their internal body, and vice versa, there could be more inflammation inside their body, and that's reflecting their skin. So I think it's so, so important that we treat our whole skin to maintain its strength and resilience. Cause a lot of times, we only care about our face and we forget the 97% of the skin in our body.

[00:22:27.160] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

And that's how treating your whole body can actually impact, you know, your future?

[00:22:35.180] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

Absolutely. I, you know, obviously have been using these products for quite some time. I love the body creams. I love that train of thought, just, you know, treating, and it says topical supplement on all of your guys products, which I'm obsessed with. So I love, you know. Yeah, we can't just treat our faces, although we're prone to look at them and think about them more. And probably signs of aging are more apparent on the face first. But, yeah, I love, love the idea of treating the whole body. You touched on the skin barrier. Can you talk to me about what that is and how does it become impacted and what that can lead to?

[00:23:13.620] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yeah, definitely. So the skin barrier is basically formed by the outer layers of the skin, the epiderms and the stratum corneum. And it's essentially the main function of the skin to create this barrier, this physical barrier that will protect our bodies against environmental stressors, pathogens, infections. And with the aging process, that, you know, barrier can become weaker also. What happens with some products, we can also cause they can compromise the barrier, some in the short term, some in the long term. So, for example, acids and retinoids, products that are inducing this peeling or inducing a lot of cell renewal in a way that you see the upper layers of your skin coming out. This is basically showing that your skin is getting more exposed. That's why a lot of retinoids or acids can make your skin more sensitive. That means that your skin exposed. So during that period that you are regenerating your skin, you need, like, a lot of, you know, sun protection and sunscreen. So that's because the barrier is compromised, and a lot of things can compromise your barrier. It could be, again, an internal issue. It could be products. But the main goal of Andy in treatment for the skin should be to maintain and strengthen the barrier, because that's how we make sure that the skin is functional and is protecting our body, because when the barrier is intact, everything internally should work.

[00:24:56.410] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

You know, better, when the bear is compromised, basically your skin is exposed, and the chances of infections and disruption of that homeostasis state, it's higher. So that's why it's so important to take care of the barrier of the skin.

[00:25:18.470] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

It's so interesting because I feel like for so long we've been told that retinol is like the gold standard of anti aging. But when you walk us through the process, that really calls into question. So your opinion on retinol?

[00:25:32.330] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yeah, so I'm not, I would say, against retinol 100%. I'm just more cautious about how much retinol we should put in our faces. I used to use a lot of retinoic acid. I had acne growing up, and eventually I continued to use for its anti aging purposes. And I was constantly red and I was constantly peeling off. And when we started testing the peptides that we were researching, at one scan, we were comparing retinoic acid because it is the gold standard. And initially, what I saw is that instead of the genes associated with aging going down, they were going up with retinol. I was like, wow, this is supposed to be anti aging. These genes are going up and inflammation is going up, and collagen is also going up. So, okay, we see that it's inducing collagen. And my interpretation is that during that acute phase that we're using retinol, you can induce inflammation and aging can actually go up. If your skin adapts well and you recover, those genes will come down and you have the collagen production and you can recover from that process. What is a little problematic is if you continue to induce the pilling and the inflammation over and over in a way that your skin doesn't recover.

[00:27:05.690] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

So in that way, you could one be exhausting your skin because you are always inducing cell renewal, and then eventually you only have so many stem cells to replace the ones that you are peeling out. The other thing is that you need to make sure that you don't have more inflammation than you can handle, because in the end, that can lead to damage your skin or compromise your barrier in the long term. So to me, it's basically, I like the idea of cycling or at least alternating days with retinol or not. Mainly if it's like medical strength, like the tretinoin, the ones that are stronger if it's over the counter, and if your skin tolerates well, I don't see a major problem. But it's basically, listen to your skin, how much your skin is reacting. If you feel that your skin is completely adapted, I think it should work well for you. Just be careful with dryness and redness and make sure that we are using complementary product to counteract some of those potential side effects.

[00:28:23.350] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

I love that. Thank you. I think you probably just opened up a lot of people's eyes.

[00:28:29.030] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yeah, it was an interesting learning for me as well, and it came from these studies. And I think for me, it was like an interesting realization as well. From that moment, I stopped using retinol because I was like, okay, I'm not doing what I thought that I was doing, and now I use very occasionally, I basically only use one skin. But for a lot of people, they can use one skin combined with retinol. I think one skin is a great alternative for people with sensitive skin that cannot tolerate retinol. So it's good that we now have options that are as effective. And a lot of the data that we have in the lab is very interesting because we see that the collagen production of Os one peptide, that's the main ingredient behind our products is at similar levels that retinoic acid induces, but with no inflammation, with no increase of gene associated with aging. Basically, what we found was a way that we can target aging. We can actually decrease the genes associated with aging, reduce collagen, but no side effects. Very gentle, very simple.

[00:29:45.270] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

In some ways, I love that before we dive into the product, because it's so interesting, and I've been aware of one skin. I mean, I'm so blessed that I learn about amazing things in longevity space super early. So I've been aware of you guys for a long time. But how do we even measure skin aging? Obviously, can you talk about how you do it in the lab? Then? There's also a big wave of people doing skin aging measurements with some of these devices, like cameras.

[00:30:14.910] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yeah, yeah. So that's a great question and one that we care so much because we can only know if it's working if you can measure in the lab. Luckily, we have many ways that we can measure. We can measure gene expression, as I was saying, like, if this gene that is associated with aging is going up or it's going down, we know if the product's working as we expect. The most accurate or comprehensive way to measure is actually measuring the skin's biological age. And we can measure that through the epigenetic signature of the skin. But we can only do this in the lab. It's easier to do this in the lab, but because we need a skin biopsy, but we can also do in humans, it's just like an invasive process. So in the lab, what do we do? We extract the DNA of the skin and we sequence and we measure, like, how is this epigenetic signature? And we run through this algorithm that we have trained, and we can determine the age of the skin. So, for example, I'm 38. My skin can be 35 or can be 42, depending on how healthy, how functional my skin is.

[00:31:32.860] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

And obviously, that depends on my lifestyle, my genetics, a combination. But I think we have a number. So if I have a skin that's like 35. And I'm treating with whatever product or peptide I can now measure at the molecular level how many years I'm reducing the age of the skin. So it's a. It's a way that we can quantify the age reversal effect, which. It's very accurate, as I said. So, for example, for peptide, we saw that we could reduce 2.5 years, the age of the skin in the lab. So that's actually the first molecule that was validated to reverse the age of the skin in the lab is really interesting because, again, we can measure. We can quantify in humans becomes a little bit more challenging. As I said, we can do. We can collect a skin biopsy and measure that. It's just not something that you can do on a daily basis. The filters that you mentioned, I'm still not a big fan because it's still so influenced by the lightning. So if you change the light, your age will be, you know, it could be like three or five years different.

[00:32:53.440] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

So. And also, if you wake up one day and you didn't sleep well, and then. So I think the best way that we can quantify the efficacy of our products is still collecting some type of biological material. We are collaborating with another company that we are trying to develop a non invasive way to measure the efficacy or the age of your skin. So, basically, using, like, a tape strip, we would collect, like, skin cells from the upper layers of the skin. We will sequence, and then you can use products, you can do whatever interventions, and we can collect that. Again, I think that's the ultimate goal, to have something that's more reliable. Filters are. Yeah. It's still not the best tool for us to rely on.

[00:33:46.280] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

Yeah. Even the ones that are, like, in clinics, too. Is it kind of the same?

[00:33:50.810] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yeah, because even we use a lot of them for, you know, clinical studies. So we use, like, Vizia, we use Canfield. But again, you put your face there, if you move, like, 1 mm, you know, the software can detect, like, you know, a little more lines or less lines. I think, you know, it's something that we can work on. And obviously, in the end, you are taking consideration, like, the deviation error with, like, all the potential, I'd say, lack of precision of some of the measurements. It's better than nothing, but it's still not 100% accurate.

[00:34:39.050] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

Well, I'm so excited about your tests that you guys are developing. You have to send me one when you get this.

[00:34:44.360] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yes. We actually want to run a pilot in the near future, so we did a very small pilot and we got a great result. So we want to run another pilot with more participants. So I'll include you on that one. Yes.

[00:34:59.510] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

I'm so excited. I mean, you know, you love data. I love data. It's so much fun, and it's so rewarding to me. And I'm sure many other people, when you start with x and then you end up with y, you can see those benchmarks along the way. It's just so exciting, and it encourages you to really stay super committed, so I am so excited for that.

[00:35:18.840] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yeah. And I think consumers miss that so much because obviously, a lot of times it's harder to notice the difference if you're not, like, you know, taking pictures or if you're not writing down exactly, like, what's going on in your life. So I think anything that we can track, it's so, so important. And, yeah, I think consumers are definitely in need of such tools.

[00:35:48.540] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

I agree. Okay, so the great sun debacle on social media, everyone is saying, okay, obviously we know we need sun for vitamin D. Right? But then we also know that it causes uv damage. What are your thoughts? Like, can you get sun for a certain amount of time on the face and what caliber, what level of SPF do you recommend?

[00:36:13.260] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yeah. So my thoughts is that I personally, I love sun in general. If I can early morning, I'll get sunlight and activate my circadian rhythm. I think that has a lot of impact in your mood and overall energy. I wouldn't risk myself of being at a high uv index to get vitamin D from the sun, taking the risk of potentially getting damage that could, in the future, lead to skin cancer. So my approach is I will, if I can have a little bit of sun exposure in the morning, 1520 minutes, I'll come home, shower, apply my sunscreen, 30 spf. It's already, like, a really great coverage. And if I'm out there, I know that even though if I have sunscreen, it's almost impossible to protect 100%, even you get tanned a little bit. So I think what we are trying to do with sunscreen is to prevent sun damage, sunburn in a way that would potentially cause cancer or accelerate aging. It's not that we want to completely block sun. I think a little bit of uv rays for your skin is totally fine. It's just not at that level that can cause damage and can potentially, in the future, lead to skin cancer.

[00:37:47.530] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

So to me, any feel right, if you're out there and your skin is burning, it's a great sign. Like, go to the shade, apply more sunscreen, put a hat. I can't, like, be anywhere and feel that my skin is burning. It freaks me out. So I think it's just like a news, like, listen to your body and. Yeah, and in the end, it's not that you, at least for me, like, you needed to completely avoid the sun at all costs. I think life, you know, it's being outdoors and, you know, doing a lot of sports, but there are so many ways that you can enjoy both and you can protect yourself and you can avoid some of the, you know, the damages that come with sun. That's really hard a lot of times to reverse. Like, is the sunspots, is the. Obviously, you know, they fine lines, wrinkles. That is a sign of, like, collagen breakdown. We do this study in the lab, actually. We expose the skins to uvb, and then we apply some skins we apply with our SPF, some we don't. We clearly see collagen degradation, the skins that are exposed to uvb.

[00:39:03.340] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

What we saw with RSPF is that because it also contains the peptide, we are not only protecting the collagen degradation, we are boosting collagen production. So in the end, you can quantify the amount of collagen in each skin. It's really cool to see that again. You can be out in the sun with the right SPF, and you are actually boosting collagen production.

[00:39:28.690] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

Amazing. Thank you. We need this answer because some people totally avoiding the sun. I love the sun. One of the reasons why I picked this house was because we get sun exposure for a very large portion of the day. And I also get to get it in the morning in the eyes pretty much as soon as it peaks over the hill. So thank you, and I appreciate that. Okay, so let's talk about the peptide. So you guys identified a peptide that is very novel, and it's obviously making huge impacts on skin regeneration. You had said about 2.5 years, right, of age reversal. And what's that timeframe?

[00:40:10.490] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yeah. So that study was done in the lab, so was over five days of treatment. So it's a very controlled setting. So basically, let's just go back a little bit and explain how we found this peptide. I think it's interesting for people to know. So we spent, like four years just testing peptides to find.

[00:40:31.590] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

Real quick. Can you just inform everyone if they don't know what a peptide is?

[00:40:35.570] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Of course. So peptide is a sequence of amino acids. They are small, they're building blocks of proteins. So usually they are up to 50 amino acids for skin and to penetrating the skin. There is a size limit. Our peptide is ten amino acids. So it's around the size that it can penetrate without a more sophisticated delivery system. But basically the peptide can function as a signaling molecule. So enters the cells and activates certain pathways. In the case of os one peptide, we'll activate pathways related to DNA repair with collagen production, will deactivate pathways related to inflammation with senescent cells. And it's very interesting because peptides, they function in very small doses. So, for example, our peptide works at a nanomolar molar or like micromolar. So very small concentrations can have a very significant impact. And it's similar for hormones, right, hormones, you know that peptides bind hormone receptors and they can obviously have like a very significant impact. So a lot of time people will complain, oh, why? Your peptide is the last ingredient in your product. Like this should be the main ingredient. And that's not necessarily the case. It could be like in very small amounts.

[00:42:08.270] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

But you do need to know what is the concentration that that peptide is functioning. Because obviously they are different ranges. And if it's too low or too high one, they can cause like toxicity, or too low cannot be effective. So at one skin, we tested all of that and we added the concentration that we know that works, penetrates the skin and so on. So going back how we found the peptide, so we spent around four years just testing peptides with this goal of finding one that could reduce the load of old cells, senescent cells in the skin. So we tested nearly 900 peptides before we found os one. And basically we're measuring the number of senescent cells. And we can quantify the amount of senescent cells at the end. And we saw that our peptide, os one, could reduce around 40% of the load of senescent cells. And we can see this visually very well. We have like, data to show. But also what we see when we reduce the load of senescent cells is that the healthy cells are proliferating, they're replicating. So that's why we call re rejuvenation. Because in the end, you have more young cells than before the treatment and you have very few of those old cells that would be accelerating aging.

[00:43:40.400] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

And as I said in the lab, we could measure that reduces the age of the skin in 2.5 years. Obviously, very controlled condition. Now, once we develop this product, we are also running a clinical studies in humans. And the participants have used the product for twelve months. And we could see after twelve months we collect biopsies, we measure the age of the skin. And we could see a reduction of 3.3 years in the age of the skin in humans using our products. And this was a very interesting data because we could see that we can actually reverse the age of the skin in humans. So instead of aging one year, we are reversing back 3.3 years. Now we are repeating this study again with a larger cohort. And we expect to either see that we can reduce, show this age reversal earlier, or have a larger impact in terms of reducing the age of the skin. But all very exciting to show that what we saw in the lab is now translating to people. So if people are using our product consistently for twelve months, they should see this kind of effect.

[00:45:01.470] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

That's so exciting. Is that at once or twice a day?

[00:45:04.300] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Twice a day?

[00:45:05.080] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

Twice a day. Morning and morning and night?

[00:45:06.710] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yes.

[00:45:07.350] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

Amazing. And you now have the eye cream. What's the difference between an eye cream product and a regular facial product?

[00:45:15.210] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yeah, that was something that we discovered as we were studying the skin differences between your face and your eyes. So the skin around our eyes is around five times thinner. And when we saw studies that measured the biological age just under or above your eyes, and it was 20 to 30, 30 years older than the skin around your temple. I know, it's depressing. That's so sad. So now we know, okay. That's why we see the signs of aging faster around your eyes. It definitely ages faster. It accumulates more senescent cells. So we thought, okay, there is a clear need to develop a product that is targeting that delicate skin around our eyes that has more senescence cells. Because the challenge with the skin around the eyes is that it's thinner. So we not only need to have a more potent product, but we also need to be very gentle because it can't cause any irritation. Right. So we actually tested in eyelid skins that we got in partnership with like plastic surgeons, people that do like blepharoplastic surgery. So we could like culture that very thin, thin skin. And we start like formulating this new eye cream with different ingredients.

[00:46:44.270] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

We increase the concentration of the peptide, so actually has the highest concentration of our peptide. And the end result is that we could see the collagen production with the eye product is 2.3 higher than the control and the face products only one time higher. It's a more potent product in terms of increasing collagen production. And from the clinical studies, all the instrument measurements that we did in terms of elasticity hydration was the strongest data that we've seen with all of our products, because we did everything to get to the most effective formula. We knew that that area needed more help, and we're very excited to see both, you know, the lab data, also the clinical data, and it's one of the products that people see results the faster. So, yeah, very exciting.

[00:47:49.720] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

I love that. Well, thank you so much. Are the results with the body cream about the same, or should you expect to see about three years of biological age or skin age reversal with that?

[00:48:01.010] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yeah, with the body cream. We didn't do the same study because it's a very expensive risk study of this one that we measured, the biological age. But what we did was an interesting one because we wanted to correlate the health of your skin with your levels of inflammation, as we were talking earlier. So for this study, we recruited participants that were older. They were, like, from 60 to 90 years old. We collect their blood, and then they started using our body and face product for three months, twice a day, and after three months, we collect their blood again. So basically, the only intervention that they added was treating their skin. And by measuring the inflammatory cytokines, we could see a drop in some of those cytokines related to inflammation just by treating your skin. And this process was fascinating because, again, we know that inflammation is associated in your body. Right. Chronic diseases, all the degenerative diseases, and showing that by adding this step of treating your skin can help potentially preventing some of those chronic diseases, for us, was, like, so exciting to see and to confirm our hypothesis that this skin has actually an impact on your body.

[00:49:28.700] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

But we did other measurements in this clinical study in terms of the barrier of the skin. So we could see an increase in the barrier of the skin, an increase in elasticity, but we didn't measure the biological age for the body product.

[00:49:44.940] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

But that's still amazing that you see an impact on the blood levels of inflammation. Just, I mean, to me, it makes so much sense. I have been very aware and conscious of what I'm putting on my skin because I know that it can enter the bloodstream. So makes so much sense to me. And it's amazing that, you know, levels of skin inflammation reduction results in that. Skin is also just so amazing to me that it's literally holding all of our organs together and there's so much going on. It's just. It's unbelievable. It's just holding us all together, so we definitely have to take care of it. I think about things like this all the time.

[00:50:17.690] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

I love that. Yeah, 100%.

[00:50:21.570] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

What do you think about the future of skincare? So what are you guys working on next? What about, can you guys make this into a supplement so we can take it internally?

[00:50:31.490] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yeah, a lot of people ask us that. I think the challenge with internal or oral peptide, first, is like understanding what is the dose that you need to actually have that same effect systemically. Second, obviously we needed to do all the safety studies for the skin. We know that the peptides don't get to the bloodstream. We know that the impact that we are creating is that we are helping your skin. And the consequence of a healthy skin is impacting your body, but not the peptide directly. But I think there is potential, obviously, to have the peptide applied to different conditions. Mainly when we think of inflammatory conditions. It's something that we want to explore in the future as a supplement would be a little challenging because this peptide could be considered almost like a new drug in some ways, because it's not a peptide that you find in the nature and your body is a synthetic peptide, even though it's completely safe, is a completely novel peptide. So because of that, we needed to do all the safety studies more through the FDA process. So that's something that we want to explore down the line.

[00:51:51.000] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

But right now our main focus is mainly on the skin as a top complication.

[00:51:56.360] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

Well, if you create a supplement or an injectable peptide, I'm going to be all in because, you know, it's so exciting that we can extend our health span and it seems like we can extend our lifespan. But, you know, to me in particular, I want to look really good, like while living life. So I'm very excited about all things, you know, skin health related. So what are your, what's your opinion on red light therapy and skin? I know it's not your main area of research or anything, but have you just tried it yourself?

[00:52:26.940] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yeah, I did, and I actually like a lot. I think it's one of the few treatments that I feel direct, like impact on my skin. So we know there are several studies showing that rely therapy can help with cellular function, can decrease inflammation, and it acts in a very pleiotropic way, so activating different, you know, pathways, but in a complementary way that our product works. So I actually think that the combination of them are really, you know, interesting. Obviously, when I do red light therapy, I have like bare skin. I don't like to have any products because you want your skin to absorb the light. But right after applying the product, I think it's a great, I love those interventions that are complementary in some ways. So I think it's a good one. I think you needed to understand. Well, if you want to go in the nitty gritty, obviously the dose. So obviously, not all devices out there are really effective. You needed to have a certain dose, and usually the masks, they don't necessarily reach the dose that you need. So you need that pineal that's a little stronger. But I'm not an expert, so I'm not going to go there.

[00:53:53.490] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

Well, so just not. Not based on necessarily research, but, like, what is your personal protocol? So, like, you like the panel?

[00:54:01.810] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yeah.

[00:54:02.170] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

Are you doing it daily or.

[00:54:04.280] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

I wish I could do daily. I actually do, like, maybe once a week, because at my gym, we have, like, a sono and with the red light, so that's when I do two in one.

[00:54:18.050] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

I'd love to hear that. Well, anything else that we should know about what's the future is one skin, and of course, I'll include all the details and show notes.

[00:54:27.590] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yeah, no, I think that, you know, the coolest part about one skin is that we continue to do science. We have a team of five PhDs. They go to the lab every day and continue to see what's going on in the scientific field that we could translate to new products. So I think the. The coolest part of being a biotech company developing a product for skin is that we are the first able to translate that new research into products. So the more that we understand how we can manipulate aging or reverse aging the fastest, you know, we at one skin will work to bring, like, new products that will make this accessible to. To our community, to anyone out there. And there is so much going on right there. Every day is like new molecules, new ingredients being studied. Obviously, there are new areas that are a little bit more, I would say, invasive, for example, gene therapy or cell reprogramming. But I think in the end, we'll find ways to translate this into human applications. So we love to be very close on all of those innovations and implement them in the new product development, because for us, yeah, we will never stop.

[00:55:55.520] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Like, with the products that we have today, we want to be always at the forefront with the latest technology and the most effective product to target skin aging. And that requires constant innovation and evolution. So I think that's the beauty of having a scientific team that continues to do the work every day.

[00:56:26.530] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

I couldn't agree more. And when we were talking at the biohacking conference, it was so interesting because there's a lot of molecules that people are getting really excited about. I won't necessarily name them, but what you said to me was, yes, the molecule could be interesting, but it's all about if it's going to penetrate into the skin, right?

[00:56:45.440] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

So if it's going to penetrate, if it's going to penetrate at a certain concentration, if you can get that molecule at the same purity or at a very high purity, that doesn't come with contaminants that could cause more inflammation. So a lot of the plain text tracks that are very powerful. The main challenge is, again, get the purity, get them into the scene at the concentration that they are effective. So in the end, to have that rejuvenation effect is challenging because you need to check a lot of boxes. But I think, yeah, there are, like, new technologies that you can encapsulate. There are new delivery systems, so there are ways that you can overcome, but it requires a lot of research. So it's not like taking a molecule that's very, you know, popular or exciting right now and adding to a product and, you know, leather on your skin and thinking that's gonna affect, you know, work as the way that they describe in a certain paper, because it's not like it's a. It's a lot of things that needed to work well to get to that end result. Yeah.

[00:58:03.300] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

And, I mean, that's why I'm so excited to be friends with you guys. I mean, so you don't have to wade through, because obviously, marketing is such, it's the entire industry of cosmetics and skincare products. So just because you're putting something on doesn't mean it's actually working.

[00:58:20.160] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Yeah, 100%. And luckily, we, because we can see everything at the microscopic level. We can say it. We can tell it faster if it's, like, working or not. For the consumers, a lot of times they will use for some time and then move to the next one. So it's definitely a more frustrating journey, but hopefully, we can be here to help and do all the hard work so people can just kind of enjoy the benefits.

[00:58:47.700] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

Well, I'm grateful for all of your hard work, so thank you for making it clear and just, you know, easy to understand, and it was such a pleasure to have you here with me.

[00:58:57.070] - Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD

Awesome. Thank you so much for the great questions. Kayla is always fun to dive into the science and explain the why behind everything that we do. So thanks for this opportunity again.

[00:59:08.710] - Kayla Barnes-Lentz

Oh, absolutely.