New DNA Research Could Change The Beauty Industry

Beauty products featuring DNA repair enzymes could become the next big trend, thanks to the winners of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Awarded the honour for their research into the ‘mechanistic studies of DNA repair’, work carried out by the trio – Paul Modrich of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Aziz Sancar, of the University of North Carolina and Tomas Lindahl from the Francis Crick Institute – has unmasked how the body repairs DNA mutations that can cause sickness and contribute to ageing.

Speaking about their decision to award the scientists, the Nobel jury said:

“Their systematic work has made a decisive contribution to the understanding of how the living cell functions, as well as providing knowledge about the molecular causes of several hereditary diseases and about mechanisms behind both cancer development and ageing.”

A handful of brands, including Elizabeth Arden, Neova and Olay are already developing products using the research, but in the long term it could have the potential to drastically alter the relationship between health and beauty, integrating the two to a far greater extent than ever before.

Not only could future products help prevent ageing and brighten skin, they could also have the ability to reverse damage caused by UV rays as well as reduce pre-cancerous and cancerous cells.

Speaking to Well + Good, Dr. Ronald Moy, a Los Angeles-based dermatologist and vice-president of the Skin Cancer Foundation explained:

“After the age of 30, we start greatly declining in [our own] DNA repair enzymes. Replacing them will not only decrease skin aging but, from a medical standpoint, it’ll really prevent skin cancer.”

With advances in cosmetic science already driving the beauty industry, products built around research on epigenetics are likely to become even more prevalent, spurning a predicted growth in the cosmeceuticals market of around 9% between 2015-2020.