Lipotrue award nomination for biomimetic skin care innovation

Cosmetics Valley’s Cosmetics 360 Show has kicked off in Paris’ Carousel de Louvre this week, where the European cosmetics community is showcasing the latest innovations and trends affecting the industry.  

At the event, Barcelona-based Lipotrue’s Frag-Brillin ingredient for skin care, a biomimetic fragment of human fibrillin-1, has been nominated for an award for the best raw material. 

The other nominees are INdermal’s Exo FDS FolliXield for hair regeneration, which strengthens hair regeneration with active ingredients encapsulated in exosomes; and Seprify’s complexion-perfecting cellulose technology, which is a plant-derived cellulose ingredient that replaces titanium dioxide in formulations to give UV enhancement, whiteness, a soft focus and a smooth texture. 

We spoke to Lipotrue’s senior product manager Míriam Mateu and sales manager Mégane Morin to find out more about the innovation... 

Cosmetics Design-Europe (CDE): Lipotrue has been nominated for a Cosmetic 360 Award for its biomimetic fragment of human fibrillin-1 innovation. Can you tell us more about this please? ​

Míriam Mateu:​ Lipotrue has been nominated for an innovation centered on a biomimetic fragment of human fibrillin-1, developed using mRNA technology. 

This fragment is obtained through transient expression in plants via vertical farming, combining sustainability with technological advancement. 

We focused on fibrillin because it plays a crucial role in forming elastic fibres, as well as in skin integrity and repair. Fibrillin is the primary component of microfibrils and serves as the scaffold for elastin deposition in elastic fibres. 

Fibrillin microfibrils stretch and recoil, triggering the skin’s TGFβ repair response, and enhance cell adhesion. This promotes the transition of fibroblasts into myofibroblasts, which induces stress fibres, enhancing “cellasticity,” contractility, adhesion, and remodelling. Cellasticity, or the elasticity of the cell, is the capacity that the cell and the stress fibres have to contract and extend. Aged skin has less myofibroblasts, and thus less cellasticity.  

Moreover, Frag-Brillin remastered promotes titin, a giant elastic protein known for its role in muscle stress fibres, suggesting a novel focus on this protein in skin care formulations. 

CDE: How long have you been working on this innovation? ​

Míriam:​ This project began about two and a half years ago when we started working on protein fragments in wild plants as biofactories through vertical farming, combining sustainability with innovation.  
 
The idea was to develop a line of protein fragments that were both biomimetic of human proteins and boosters of the same proteins. In fact, we have already launched two fragments of collagen: Col-Frag remastered. a fragment of collagen I, and Col-4-Frag remastered, a fragment of collagen IV. Frag-Brillin remastered is the third product in the Fragments remastered family. 

CDE: How do you expect this breakthrough to impact the skin care category?  ​

Mégane Morin:​ We think that the fragments of proteins are offering an alternative in the market to the traditional proteins and amino acids. 

Moreover, we are changing the focus when talking about elasticity on elastin to fibrillin, which allow us to go further and include firmness and repair 

CDE: What kinds of NPD is this innovation suited for and why?   ​

Míriam:​ It can be used in almost all skin care products: anti-ageing serums, masks, day and night creams and even body care as well.  

It has (in-vivo) high efficacy in only one hour, so that it would be suitable in products looking for fast efficacy as well. 

We would like to invite formulators to combine it with one, or both, of the other fragments of collagens to get a complete holistic approach to their anti-ageing products while taking advantage of the fragments of proteins.