Evaluating Search Methods for Identifying Candidates for Novel Biologically Inspired Sunscreens

Authors

  • Irene Shen Shanghai High School International Division
  • Thomas Hesselberg Oxford University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47611/jsrhs.v10i3.1646

Keywords:

Natural, Sunscreen, UV-Protection, Sustainability, Toxicity

Abstract

As the Earth's ozone layer, which blocks harmful UV radiation from reaching Earth's surface, becomes thinner, sunscreens have become one the most used and most important cosmetic products in recent decades. However, UV filters (both organic and inorganic) in the current synthetic sunscreen are found to affect the marine ecosystem negatively. They pollute the marine environment and cause damage to organisms’ reproductive and digestive systems (from microorganisms to mammals). Here, we use biologically inspired design with a problem and sustainability-driven approach to identify a possible plant or animal-inspired ingredients that could be extracted and used to obtain high protection from the sun while minimizing toxicity to human skin and pollution of the marine environment. We used Google, Google Scholar, and AskNature to identify solutions and evaluate their effectiveness. While the three search methods did not differ statistically in the number of initial solutions found, Google was perhaps surprisingly the one that generated the most hits. However, in terms of the most promising solutions, AskNature generated the most. We identified nine solutions with a particularly high potential based on their UV absorption and potential for mass production for further development: raspberry seed oil, nanoparticles of ivy rootlets, cuticular wax of dwarf mountain pine,  lichen extract, MAAs from cyanobacteria, MAAs from dinoflagellates, red sweat of hippopotamus, mucus from mushroom coral, and gadusol compound from marine organisms of which we found that nanoparticles of ivy rootlets, lichen extracts, and gadusol to be especially promising. 

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Thomas Hesselberg, Oxford University

Departmental Lecturer in Biological & Environmental Sciences
Course Co-Director for the Postgraduate Certificate of Ecological Survey Techniques
Director of Studies for Biological Sciences
Oxford University Department for Continuing Education

References or Bibliography

Ácsová, A., Hojerová, J., Janotková, L., Bendová, H., Jedličková, L., Hamranová, V. and Mar tiniaková, S., 2021. The real UVB photoprotective efficacy of vegetable oils: in vitro and in vivo studies. Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences, 20(1), pp.139-151.

Baker, L.A., Marchetti, B., Karsili, T.N., Stavros, V.G. and Ashfold, M.N., 2017. Photoprotection: extending lessons learned from studying natural sunscreens to the design of artificial sunscreen constituents. Chemical Society Reviews, 46(12), pp.3770-3791.

Downs, C.A., Kramarsky-Winter, E., Segal, R., Fauth, J., Knutson, S., Bronstein, O., Ciner, F.R., Jeger, R., Lichtenfeld, Y., Woodley, C.M. and Pennington, P., 2016. Toxicopathological effects of the sunscreen UV filter, oxybenzone (benzophenone-3), on coral planulae and cultured primary cells and its environmental contamination in Hawaii and the US Virgin Islands. Archives of environmental contamination and toxicology, 70(2), pp.265-288.

Derikvand, P., Llewellyn, C.A. and Purton, S., 2017. Cyanobacterial metabolites as a source of sunscreens and moisturizers: a comparison with current synthetic compounds. European Journal of Phycology, 52(1), pp.43-56.

Drollet, J. H., P. Glaziou, and P. M. V. Martin. "A study of mucus from the solitary coral Fungiafungites (Scleractinia: Fungiidae) in relation to photobiological UV adaptation." Marine Biology 115.2 (1993): 263-266.

Dummer, R. and Maier, T., 2002. UV protection and skin cancer. Cancers of the Skin, pp.7-12.

Gago-Ferrero, P., Alonso, M.B., Bertozzi, C.P., Marigo, J., Barbosa, L., Cremer, M., Secchi, E.R., Azevedo, A., Lailson-Brito Jr, J., Torres, J.P. and Malm, O., 2013. First determination of UV filters in marine mammals. Octocrylene levels in Franciscana dolphins. Environmental science & technology, 47(11), pp.5619-5625.

Gao, Q. and Garcia-Pichel, F., 2011. Microbial ultraviolet sunscreens. Nature Reviews Microbiology, 9(11), pp.791-802.

Galasso, V. and Pichierri, F., 2009. Probing the molecular and electronic structure of norhipposudoric and hipposudoric acids from the red sweat of hippopotamus amphibius: a DFT investigation. The Journal of Physical Chemistry A, 113(11), pp.2534-2543.

Hawranik, D.J., Anderson, K.S., Simmonds, R. and Sorensen, J.L., 2009. The chemoenzymatic synthesis of usnic acid. Bioorganic & medicinal chemistry letters, 19(9), pp.2383-2385.

Jacobs, J.F., Koper, G.J.M. and Ursem, W.N.J., 2007. UV protective coatings: a botanical approach. Progress in organic coatings, 58(2-3), pp.166-171

Kim, S., Jung, D., Kho, Y. and Choi, K., 2014. Effects of benzophenone-3 exposure on endocrine disruption and reproduction of Japanese medaka (Oryzias latipes)—A two generation exposure study. Aquatic toxicology, 155, pp.244-252.

Krupp, David A. "The composition of the mucus from the mushroom coral Fungia scutaria." Proc. 4th Int. Coral Reef Symp. Vol. 2. 1982.

Labille, J., Slomberg, D., Catalano, R., Robert, S., Apers-Tremelo, M.L., Boudenne, J.L., Manasfi, T. and Radakovitch, O., 2020. Assessing UV filter inputs into beach waters during recreational activity: A field study of three French Mediterranean beaches from consumer survey to water analysis. Science of the Total Environment, 706, p.136010.

Lambers, H., Chapin, F.S. and Pons, T.L., 2008. Photosynthesis. In Plant physiological ecology (pp. 11-99). Springer, New York, NY.

Lebedev, A.N., Gartz, M., Kreibig, U. and Stenzel, O., 1999. Optical extinction by spherical particles in an absorbing medium: application to composite absorbing films. The European Physical Journal D-Atomic, Molecular, Optical and Plasma Physics, 6(3), pp.365-373.

Lenau, T. and Hesselberg, T., 2015. Dry sanitation concepts with inspiration from nature. Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development, 5(2), pp.330-335.

Lenau, T., Dentel, A., Ingvarsdóttir, Þ. and Guđlaugsson, T., 2010. Engineering design of an adaptive leg prosthesis using biological principles. In DS 60: Proceedings of DESIGN 2010, the 11th International Design Conference, Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Lenau, T.A., Metze, A.L. and Hesselberg, T., 2018, March. Paradigms for biologically inspired design. In Bioinspiration, Biomimetics, and Bioreplication VIII (Vol. 10593, p. 1059302). International Society for Optics and Photonics.

Lenaghan, S.C., Burris, J.N., Chourey, K., Huang, Y., Xia, L., Lady, B., Sharma, R., Pan, C., LeJeune, Z., Foister, S. and Hettich, R.L., 2013. Isolation and chemical analysis of nanoparticles from English ivy (Hedera helix L.). Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 10(87), p.20130392.

Matsui, K., Nazifi, E., Kunita, S., Wada, N., Matsugo, S. and Sakamoto, T., 2011. Novel glycosylated mycosporine-like amino acids with radical scavenging activity from the cyanobacterium Nostoc commune. Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology B:Biology, 105(1), pp.81-89.

Matsui, K., Nazifi, E., Hirai, Y., Wada, N., Matsugo, S. and Sakamoto, T., 2012. The cyanobacterial UV-absorbing pigment scytonemin displays radical-scavenging activity. The Journal of general and applied microbiology, 58(2), pp.137-144.

Oomah, B.D., Ladet, S., Godfrey, D.V., Liang, J. and Girard, B., 2000. Characteristics of raspberry (Rubus idaeus L.) seed oil. Food chemistry, 69(2), pp.187-193.

Oyamada, C., Kaneniwa, M., Ebitani, K., Murata, M. and Ishihara, K., 2008. Mycosporine-like amino acids extracted from scallop (Patinopecten yessoensis) ovaries: UV protection and growth stimulation activities on human cells. Marine Biotechnology, 10(2), pp.141-150.

Osborn, A.R., Almabruk, K.H., Holzwarth, G., Asamizu, S., LaDu, J., Kean, K.M., Karplus, P.A., Tanguay, R.L., Bakalinsky, A.T. and Mahmud, T., 2015. De novo synthesis of a sunscreen compound in vertebrates. Elife, 4, p.e05919.

Park, H.Y., Kosmadaki, M., Yaar, M. and Gilchrest, B.A., 2009. Cellular mechanisms regulating human melanogenesis. Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences, 66(9), pp.1493-1506.

Radice, M., Manfredini, S., Ziosi, P., Dissette, V., Buso, P., Fallacara, A. and Vertuani, S., 2016. Herbal extracts, lichens and biomolecules as natural photo-protection alternatives to synthetic UV filters. A systematic review. Fitoterapia, 114, pp.144-162.

Ridder, Published by M.; 23, Nov (2020): „Sunscreen cream FORECAST market SIZE Worldwide 2019-2024“. Retrieved am 21.02.2021 from https://www.statista.com/statistics/866356/sunscreen-ingredients-global-market-size-forecast/#:~:text=The%20global%20sunscreen%20cream%20market,billion%20U.S%20dollars%20by%202024.

Saikawa, Y., Hashimoto, K., Nakata, M., Yoshihara, M., Nagai, K., Ida, M. and Komiya, T., 2004. The red sweat of the hippopotamus. Nature, 429(6990), pp.363-363.

Shick, J.M. and Dunlap, W.C., 2002. Mycosporine-like amino acids and related gadusols: biosynthesis, accumulation, and UV-protective functions in aquatic organisms. Annual review of Physiology, 64(1), pp.223-262.

Taira, H., Aoki, S., Yamanoha, B. and Taguchi, S., 2004. Daily variation in cellular content of UV-absorbing compounds mycosporine-like amino acids in the marine dinoflagellate Scrippsiella sweeneyae. Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology B: Biology, 75(3), pp.145-155.

Tovar-Sánchez, A., Sánchez-Quiles, D., Basterretxea, G., Benedé, J.L., Chisvert, A., Salvador, A., Moreno-Garrido, I. and Blasco, J., 2013. Sunscreen products as emerging pollutants to coastal waters. PLoS One, 8(6), p.e65451.

Xia, L., Lenaghan, S.C., Zhang, M., Zhang, Z. and Li, Q., 2010. Naturally occurring nanoparticles from English ivy: an alternative to metal-based nanoparticles for UV protection. Journal of Nanobiotechnology, 8(1), pp.1-9.

Published

11-02-2021

How to Cite

Shen, Y. H., & Hesselberg, T. (2021). Evaluating Search Methods for Identifying Candidates for Novel Biologically Inspired Sunscreens. Journal of Student Research, 10(3). https://doi.org/10.47611/jsrhs.v10i3.1646

Issue

Section

HS Review Articles