More Than Just Skin Deep

Over 30 years of research has led to this new scientific breakthrough by Dior skincare and it determines how ‘energised’ your skin is as you age. Sarah hani jamil learns all about this new discovery at the recent Dior skincare scientific summit in Shanghai.

- Sarah Hani Jamil

How much do you really know about your skin? Sure, we know the basic stuff such as what our skin types are, what kind of products aggravate it, the types of foods that cause breakouts and generally how to care for it but beyond that, there are so many factors in what makes your skin the way it is.

However, at the root of it all are stems cells. Otherwise known as mother cells, they exist throughout your whole body and are used whenever your body needs them. “Unlike cells in your body that have specific functions, stem cells are more like an imprint. It’s a cell that really hasn’t decided what it’s going to be yet. The term stem cells refers to a cell that can self-renew so that it can make more of itself,” explains Dr. Knut Woltjen from the Center of iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA), Kyoto University, Japan, whom I met at the summit.

“In all the adult tissues in the skin, there’s a resident population of stem cells in low amounts – tissue-specific stem cells that can make more skin and are responsible for key functions in skin preservation and the regeneration of fibroblasts. One single stem cell can generate millions of new cells,” he adds.

Inspired by the study of stem cells by Nobel Prize-winning stem cell researcher, Professor Shinya Yamanaka from CiRA, which focused on the reprogramming of adult cells into stem cells, Dior Science has found that the number of stems cells within the skin does not decrease as we age, but in fact, it’s their energy potential that decreases by half, resulting in a drop of their regenerative capacity and a loss of skin’s cellular vitality.