SKIN SCIENCE

Lancôme's International Scientific Director, DR ANNIE BLACK, talks to Surekha Gogulan about skincare, the technology behind some of Lancôme's newest products, and being a woman in science.

- Surekha Gogulan

After working on skin grafts and earning a PhD in cell biology with a focus in tissue engineering, Dr Annie Black, the International Scientific Director of Lancôme, spearheaded a lab at L’Oréal Research & Innovation that created artificial skin models. We ask Dr Annie Black to share with us more about the impact of her work and what it means to be an influential woman of science.

What inspired you to pursue a specialisation in tissue engineering, especially in creating skin grafts?

I’ve always been a very curious person, even as a child. I love to understand how things work and I’ve always been fascinated by biology. When it came the time to select a specialty, I was interested in the medical field, but I didn’t want to be a doctor. Research came naturally and what is amazing about tissue engineering is that you reconstruct organs. I got to interact with doctors, working clinics, surgeons, molecular biologists, and cell biologists. It was the perfect intersection between the medical field that I found interesting and human biology and research, which gave me lots of space to be curious and creative.