Cloning The Skin Microbiome On Labskin

Labskin breakthrough clones 16 human skin swabs into 54 living microbiome test subjects

Labskin scientists cloned 16 swabs of skin from the cheeks of healthy volunteers into 54 Labskin test subjects to allow sequencing of microbial DNA for the identification and quantification of the bacterial microbiome isolated and pooled together. The live bacteria, virus and fungi (microbiota) was consistant on all 54 test subjects for up to 7 days in the Labskin laboratories in York, UK.

The LabskinAI virtual model aggregated and analysed the bacterial microbiome data, extracted from each sample, and after eliminating false or anomalous readings, provided test results within a range of ±10% of the human volunteers’ control skin from which it was initially cloned..

Allows simultaneous multiple skincare products or topical medical treatment testing on the same subject

The results of this study validate Labskin’s ability to undertake multiple clinical trial and skincare product testing, in parallel, on the cloned human skin microbiome, that is as close to the original microbiome of a human test subject, without the need for human volunteers after initial cloning takes place. This further allows multiple skincare products or topical drug samples to be tested on the same subject, at the same time, thus substantially reducing product development time, clinical error and clinical trial supervision costs.

Gerard Brandon, CEO of Integumen plc, comments:

By de-risking each stage of the traditional topical drug and skincare product development process, the Labskin cloning service makes it economic for industry to research and explore new treatments by allowing agile development and a cost-effective “fast fail” protocols on disposable human-skin test subjects cloned from healthy human volunteers.

This breakthrough study clearly supports our commercial strategy and demonstrates Labskin’s ability to deliver healthy and damaged skin testing ‘as services’ using a proven ‘software as a service’ business model already adopted by, and proven, in other industries.