What if I told you that there are scientists working on a treatment that would destroy the bacteria that causes acne, effectively eliminating acne once and for good! I know, it doesn't sound realistic or at least it doesn't sound like something that's going to happen anytime soon BUT this is happening right now and they're getting VERY CLOSE to making this a reality. Stick around because I did a deep dive into this and what I found is going to change the acne and skincare world.
Ok this all started about 4 years ago with two scientists named David Bikard and Xavier Duportetwho started a company called Eligo Biosciences, with an idea of using CRISPR technology, which is a new technology that focuses on gene-editing, to target bacteria in the body. They specifically say, “We’re just cutting (DNA)," not modifying it like other CRISPR projects are doing. They quickly got a $20 million dollar investment led by Seventure and Khosla in 2017. https://endpts.com/two-young-scientists-bag-20m-to-perfect-their-crispr-attack-on-disease-causing-bacteria-at-upstart-eligo/ Fast forward to the beginning of this year, and after seeing success in initial trials they narrowed their plan down to targetting P. acnes bacterium in an effort to solve the acne problem, and they received a $224 million dollar investment from GlaxoSmithKline. Ok, let's slow down for a second, what is "the acne bacteria"? https://endpts.com/glaxosmithkline-backs-a-preclinical-acne-treatment-from-eligo-bioscience-that-uses-crispr-to-kill-bacteria/
Well it's officially called Propionibacterium acnes, or P. acnes bacterium for short and it's is a bacteria that causes acne on the skin. The way it works is that P. acnes on the skin digests sebum, which is the oil our skin produces, and then it releases large amounts of lipase, which is an enzyme that creates inflammation of the skin and this causes acne. So their hope it so target the bacteria on our skin in an effort to eliminate or reduce that bacteria's presence in us. Pretty insane stuff but we're living in the future here.
The way this works is pretty complex and they have a technology page that explains it all (https://eligo.bio/technology/) but to oversimplify it, the medicine will be delivered as a topical cream and this has "viral particles" which target viral phages in the skins microbiome...ok, that didn't really simplify it did it? Basically this cream will tell your skin's DNA to target P. Acnes bacterium and will destroy it, while being smart enough not to destroy other important bacteria that we don't want to attack. I mean, this is freakin revolutionary.
The last thing I was wondering is, WHAT ARE THE UPDATES? Have they made any more progress, are they talking about any updates? Don't worry I looked into it...So the initial investments and start of the project was in January of 2021, but they haven't given any public updates yet, which is pretty normal for a private company developing technology like this BUT are they still active? Well, they don't have any obvious updates like a twitter or any new press releases so I dig some digging. I went to their career page and looked at the source code on the page of their latest listing and what did I find? The last page showed a modified date of 2021-03-22, which means March 22 of this year. This tells me they are still actively working on the project AND are seeking more researchers, which makes me think they're making progress and need to onboard more people to help with the increased workloads, this is great! If I was a betting man, I'd predict they already have a working product and will begin clinical trials this year, to prove the safety and effectiveness of this treatment on humans. This means we should hear more updates within 6 months and expect to see the treatment publically available within the next few years! This is absolutely going to change the game.
Is there interesting to you, would you try it out when it comes out? I think I would. I know this is exciting stuff so don't worry I'll stay on top of this tech and keep you updated as soon as new information comes out. I'd love to hear your thoughts!