Investigating the cellular effects of external environmental stressors on human skin circadian rhythm

Skin has its own independent internal clock. This is driven by the circadian rhythm genes which modulate a diurnal pattern of skin protection from external stressors during the day and damage repair during the night. Extrinsic skin ageing is driven to a large extent by environmental factors and external stressors such as the components of sunlight, pollution and lifestyle factors. The damage from these exogenous sources and current lifestyle in the 21st century can impair skin structure, the skin's internal clock and related functions. The Birch-Machin laboratory has recently explored the role of individual and combined components of the full spectrum in solar light on human skin1. They have shown synergistic interactions of the individual sunlight components of sunlight with direct effects of urban pollution and topical actives on bioenergy and mitochondrial function1-3. The project will investigate the protection and repair against the damage induced by external stressors and thereby offer the potential for modifying the skin clock. This project is multi-disciplinary including cellular, molecular biological and physiological techniques, image analysis, cell culture, genetic and chemical analysis, immunostaining and gene expression
References:1FASEB BioAdvances 2021;3:855-865, 2Aging Cell. 2020 Oct;19(10):e13248, 3FASEB 2020 Mar; 34(3):3874-3883.