Howard Epstein
Director of Technical Services, EMD Performance Materials Corporation, Philadelphia, USA

Abstract

There is a growing interest for personalized skin care products. A limited number of companies are providing product recommendations after conducting a DNA analysis from the individual’s saliva sample. The customized gene expression report provides a recommendation for skin and hair care products that are optimized for the individual. Typically, these are products with ingredients that help boost the ability to counter oxidative stress, fight wrinkle formation, improve skin moisturization address cellulite, stretch marks and meet other specific needs as determined by genetic testing.

INTRODUCTION

Are your skin care requirements as unique as your fingerprints? If so, what type of testing would be appropriate to design personalized skin and hair care products. The post human genome era resulted in the development of new tools and techniques available to better understand the differences and similarities among all skin types. Numerous papers identifying physical and biological markers focused on skin barrier repair, metabolism, wound healing, inflammation, skin coloration and aging for diverse skin types are increasingly being published.

The Human Genome and HapMap Project
The Human Genome Project (HGP) began in 1990. It was thought to be a challenge equivalent to the mission to put a man on the moon. The project was coordinated by the National Institutes of Health and the United States Department of Energy. The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan and China contributed to the project. The Human Genome Project completed in 2003 yielded information that enabled researchers to learn more about gene function and protein signaling activity in the human body. In 2011 a report issued by Batt ...