We’ve all used cosmetics more than once. But if you really want to guarantee yourself wrinkles and pores, these soaps won’t do the trick. Rather, you need to buy a face cream specially made for the purpose. This device, unveiled on Saturday, is trying to prove that with just a small amount of COVID-19 on the skin, our skin can adapt and avoid toxins.
The soaps are shaped like insect wings, which, like butterflies, can do one thing. They release a gel with COVID-19, a molecule that helps produce more collagen, which tightens skin. Adding the device to your beauty regime, in theory, produces a glide so that you can cleanse much more effectively.
While surface environments for COVID-19 are sparsely found, the molecule resides in the skin tissues of many species. In mammals, however, it is known to primarily react with reactive oxygen species — molecules which release gas, primarily those that attach to and boost the metabolism of the body’s cells.
Co-invented by Anne Moisan and Valerie Wilke from the Université de Montréal and published by the The Lancet, the new device is described as a breakthrough because it detects CVD-19 on the skin. This is evidence to predict the action of moisturiser within the skin, and it could hold new information for cosmetic drug development, as well as trace industry, with respect to eczema, eczema-associated eczema, and impetigo. It is also under development as a device for the skin.
“At least one source of CVD-19, found on the skin and in animal studies, is uniquely adaptive in the skin. It causes epidermal skin cells to produce additional cellular elements and to assimilate the inflammation that co-occurs with CVD-19. Exposing CVD-19 to this combination activates and adapts the epidermal micro-environment,” noted Wilke in a paper released on the Global Medical Challenge Science Grants site.
For now, the device is currently on loan in Mombasa, Kenya and it will be shown publicly in July 2018 in Canada, and after a few years on the market, in Kenya and China. It is still to be tested on humans. It is currently being explored with mould and with rats. At this point, it is not possible to produce people who have naturally developed robust skin barriers. It would take a suitable animal model.
Will the device act as a substitute for some creams? Of course not, says Wilke. “Those who don’t need to produce enough CVD-19 for moisturisers will want to invest in the new development, but the biological difference between a CVD-19-enabled moisturiser and an undiagnosed infertile gel skin treatment is very small. If those products do act as a sludge on the skin, then the equipment has evolved, the sophisticated receptors created for CVD-19 have been tuned, and the movement can be amplified.”
In theory, it might be used to detect skin diseases. If it were in-vitro screened at the National Cancer Institute, says Wilke, the material could serve as a biomarker in cancer-related tissue and it might be useful for those seeking treatment. But at this stage, it is still too soon to know anything about the impact of this device on biology.