Fiocruz's study on skin aging receives award

Researchers at the Carlos Chagas Institute (Fiocruz Paraná) have used techniques such as artificial intelligence (AI) to assess the influence of exposome on skin health. It is the combination of environmental, behavioral and hormonal factors (such as UV radiation, smoking and pollution) that cumulatively can affect the skin's biological functions and accelerate its aging. The study won the Vichy Exposome Grant 2022, one of the most prestigious awards supporting research in the field. The contest's official site announced the result last Monday (9/12).

The project is entitled Khronos: analysis of skin health by mass spectrometry and artificial intelligence and unites different areas of science: proteomics by mass spectrometry and artificial intelligence. Proteomics is a technique that allows the profile of the thousands of proteins present in the skin to be analyzed, and artificial intelligence enables computers to “learn” to relate skin profiles to health.

As the team points out, the proposal is to establish “a new paradigm in assessing the impacts of exposome on skin health. As a proof of concept, one of the first applications is in the study of skin photoaging; that is, how UV radiation, provided by the sun, impacts skin health. The same system could immediately be applied to other studies, such as understanding the effects caused by pollution on the skin.

“One of the differentials of this project is the interdisciplinary nature of the team,” highlights study coordinator Paulo Carvalho. “We have specialists in computing, artificial intelligence, mass spectrometry and skin; Amanda, for example, is a professor of aesthetics and cosmetics, teaching undergraduate classes related to skin health.

Besides doctoral student Amanda Caroline Camillo de Andrade, the project team includes doctoral student Marlon Dias Mariano dos Santos, who graduated in Bioprocess Engineering and Biotechnology at UP; scientific initiation student Ana Beatriz Lyrio Lajas, from the Biomedical Engineering course at PUC-PR; and scientific initiation student Lucas Sales, an Electrical Engineering student at UFPR. All are members of the Computational and Structural Proteomics Laboratory at Fiocruz Paraná.

Vichy Laboratories is a French company that is part of the L'Oréal group, one of the leaders in exposome science recognized for being at the forefront of science applied to skin health and beauty. Among the initiatives to foster science in this theme, we highlight the Vichy Exposome Grant, created in 2016, which this year was awarded to the team from Fiocruz Paraná and will fund part of their research.