7 Eye-Opening Skin Facts (and Myths) Only a Cell Biologist Can Tell You

Carlene Higgins (0:01)

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. Welcome to Breaking Beauty, the podcast all about the breakthrough people, products and moments in beauty.

Jill Dunn (0:14)

We're your hosts, Jill Dunn and Carlene Higgins.

Carlene Higgins (0:21)

Hello and welcome to Breaking Beauty Podcast. I'm your co-host, Carlene Higgins, and I'm here with my work wife for life, Jill Dunn.

Jill Dunn (0:30)

Hey Carlene and hey to everyone at home. If you're familiar with our show, if you've been listening for the last 400 plus episodes, we are two longtime magazine beauty editors, turned beauty podcasters.

And we're in your feeds every single Wednesday, sharing the breakthrough people, products and moments in beauty. So whether that's celebrities like Tracee Ellis Ross or Hailey Bieber, or very influential dermatologists like Dr. Shireen Idris, makeup artists like Makeup By Mario, we are always here chatting with the thought leaders in Beauty Today.

Carlene Higgins (1:01)

Yes. And we also have product review episodes every single month. They're called our damn good. So don't forget to tune in. And if you're watching on YouTube, give us a thumbs up, comment and share. This week, we've partnered with OneSkin, one of the leading skin health longevity brands, founded by four female scientists to talk about what we're really seeing as the next wave in skincare, cell care.

Jill Dunn (1:24)

And that's C-E-L-L care, everybody, not cell, like as in S-E-L-L, cell care.

And definitely we're seeing this shift in the industry. They're really focusing on aging cells. How can we get them to sort of act like younger versions of themselves, keep them in order, less chaos amongst the cells, which is going to make our skin as healthy as possible. And it's a topic that can feel very overwhelming and really scientific and very dense. But that's why we brought on a true expert today to chat us through this movement. We're going to be uncovering some of the eye-opening skin truths that only a cell biologist can share.

Carlene Higgins (2:03)

We're thrilled to welcome Dr. Alessandra Zonari today. Alessandra holds degrees in biology and stem cell biology.

Plus, a doctorate in skin regeneration and tissue engineering with 20-plus published papers and three patents to her name.

Jill Dunn (2:21)

And Dr. Zonari joined OneSkin as a founding member in 2017 And Dr. Zonari is the chief scientific officer, really the mastermind behind the OS-01 Peptide that OneSkin is known for.

Carlene Higgins (2:35)

So just ahead, we're going to discover the seven skin truths that you can only really hear from someone who understands what's happening inside the cell and how cells talk to each other and even sometimes sabotage one another.

Jill Dunn (2:48)

And we're going to learn all about the latest research on skin barrier health, the differences between exosomes and peptides. I always need a refresher on that, guys.

Sugar's surprising role in aging, the buzz around DNA repair enzymes, which common ingredients could be quietly working against you, and how much of age really is within our control versus written in our genes.

Carlene Higgins (3:12)

Plus, Alessandra explains how the collagen in our skin is akin to gluten in bread. I've never heard that before. As always, you can find everything we discuss at breakingbeautypodcast.com. And to learn more and take advantage of our listener offer, head to oneskin.co/breakingbeauty.

Welcome Alessandra.

Alessandra Zonari (3:31)

Thank you so much, Jill and Carlene. I'm so excited for this conversation.

Jill Dunn (3:36)

So first of all, Alessandra, we need to sort of really let everybody know how big of a deal you are. Because I understand that you created a machine learning tool called MolClock, M-O-L-Clock, that can read the skin's DNA. And frankly, it sounds like a science fiction movie. So what can it detect about our skin that even, you know, a very thorough analysis from a dermatologist might not be able to?

Alessandra Zonari (4:03)

So we have this wonderful imaging machines, usually in dermatologist clinics, that are super powerful to look at your skin from the surface level. They can surface the sunspots, the pore size, the amount of wrinkles that you have, but they are not telling the true story of what's happening inside the skin. Is the skin behaving and acting as a younger skin, as an older skin? So this kind of information was missing so far in the research on skin aging. So what we did in the beginning, the early days of OneSkin, we developed an algorithm that can read the DNA of the skin. The DNA of the skin can tell a lot of stories because we have some chemicals on top of our DNA that change with aging, and that tells which genes should switch on and off.