EXCEL Selective suppression of cells for the safety of cosmetic ingredients

The introduction of new cosmetic substances with no risk to the health of consumers

The cosmetics industry has recently had to face increasingly complex conditions for placing its products on the market. The only way of identifying and quantifying the impact of a substance on the consumer that is recognised today by the regulatory agencies is by evaluating the effects of that product on cellular models and defining the AOPs (adverse outcome pathways), which can be likened to ‘cards’ representing mechanisms of toxicity by identifying the molecular players involved in the various cellular signalling pathways. This is why this research project on selective cell suppression is so important.

Qualifying with certainty the metabolisation of active ingredients and compounds in cosmetic formulations

The use of these chemically ‘knocked out’ (KO) biological systems will allow us to determine the target’s involvement in a metabolic pathway and the likelihood of it activating a cellular signalling pathway that could present a risk to the consumer’s health.This KO status will be obtained via the design and validation of PROTACs (proteolysis targeting chimera) for the targets in question.
These models will also allow us to characterise known ingredients and formulations by substantiating/characterising their toxicological profile, which will make it possible to predict any interactions between the ingredients of a formula.