The development of novel technologies for the design of next generation skin products

In order to design a new generation of skin-based products for the personal care sector it is important to understand the molecular interactions that occur between biobased compounds (including those derived from plants) with the different molecular assemblies present with skin. Platform technologies capable of facilitating such measurements would address a long-standing technological bottleneck related to the need to establish in-vitro screening methodologies related to anti-inflammatory responses and anti-ageing. Using cutting edge additive manufacturing approaches coupled with microfluidics this project aims to design and exploit novel skin-on-a-chip systems. By exploiting innovation in the physical sciences these model microphysiological environments will provide robust, user-defined, reproducible systems that can be coupled with novel spectroscopies and chromatographic approaches that can used to profile active compounds from plants in high-throughput.