Video: Invisible 'Second Skin' Reduces Wrinkles And Ageing Look

By R. Siva Kumar - 11 May '16 09:48AM

A new "second skin" has been developed by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). If it becomes commercially available, it can make the skin tighter and even smoothen wrinkles. It could even help to treat the skin by being a carrier of drugs.

It is made of a silicone-based polymer that is applied as a thin coating, mimicking young, healthy human skin. A number of tests reveal that the skin can even act on "eye bags" under the lower eyelids and enhance hydration of the skin.

"It's an invisible layer that can provide a barrier, provide cosmetic improvement, and potentially deliver a drug locally to the area that's being treated," said Daniel Anderson, an associate professor in MIT's Department of Chemical Engineering and co-author of the study. "Those three things together could really make it ideal for use in humans.

With age, the human skin becomes less elastic and unable to protect the human body against extreme temperatures, toxins, and radiation. Hence, the team has been trying to find a solution to the aging process with the development of a protective coating for medical and cosmetic applications.

"We started thinking about how we might be able to control the properties of skin by coating it with polymers that would impart beneficial effects," Anderson said. "We also wanted it to be invisible and comfortable."

With 100 possible polymers that had a chemical structure allowing them to be developed into a cross-linked polymer layer (XPL), the team searched for materials that could create a second skin reflecting the appearance, strength, and elasticity of a normal skin.

"It has to have the right optical properties, otherwise, it won't look good, and it has to have the right mechanical properties, otherwise it won't have the right strength and it won't perform correctly," said Robert Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT and senior author of the study.

The novel invention is being taken to a number of companies for commercial use.

The findings were published in the May 9 issue of Nature Materials.