How BioTek is Aiding the Cosmetics Industry in the Development and Testing of New In Vitro Non-Animal Based Epidermal Models

On May 11th I traveled to Finland to begin two weeks of scientific seminars at multiple customer sites across Europe. Many of the sites I visited in the south of France over the past week were dermatology companies interested in using BioTek's Cytation 5 Cell Imaging Multi-Mode Reader or Lionheart FX Automated Live Cell Imager to test new three dimensional (3D) epidermal models they are developing. This is in response to the complete ban on the sale of cosmetics developed through animal testing, which applies to all new cosmetics and their ingredients sold in the European Union, regardless of where the testing was carried out. To comply with these regulations, while still performing the testing required to deliver safe products to the public, dermatology and cosmetics companies are developing 2D and 3D skin, eye, mouth and other epidermal models using human derived cell lines, primary cells, and differentiated stem cells.

BioTek is aiding in this process by providing instrumentation and software solutions that allow streamlined, robust image-based tests to be performed with these new epidermal models.



Detection of oxidative stress and hypoxia in immortalized keratinocyte cells using dual mask cellular analysis of images captured by the Cytation 5.
 

Analysis of wound healing using 3D bioprinted keratinocytes and Gen5 cellular analysis capabilities. 

This combination results in cosmetic products that consumers can be confident will deliver the expected result and have been developed using methods free of animal testing.

By: BioTek Instruments, Brad Larson, Principal Scientist