Team:Beijing 4ELEVEN/Implementation
When we designed our project, we pictured the happy, acne-free faces of teenagers our age. We anticipate that cosmetics companies would modify our project, manufacture our Acneutralizer in large scale, and put them on market for acne patients to purchase. Not only people suffering from acne would rejoice at their once again beautiful faces, but also the medical field would benefit from the alleviation of antibiotic resistance. Our method of AMP biosynthesis would also inspire many synthetic companies, reducing the cost and boosting the efficiency of commercial AMP synthesis.
Figure 1. The product of our project
Since our product consists only of AMPs and adhesive/cohesive proteins, and the latter are harmless, the only safety concern would be that of AMPs eliminating harmless bacteria when accidentally dispersed into the environment. And because AMPs are not likely to elicit resistance in microbes, no further consequences should occur. Meanwhile, we had noted that the production strains in the project are genetically engineered organisms, although they can only grow in specific medium and only used in the lab, it is necessary to strictly ensure that the strains do not release into the environment.
Figure 2. The components of our product
Our product specializes in eliminating P. acnes and blocking external microbes from further infecting the acne regions on the skin to cure acne vulgaris. However, in the variety of causes of acne vulgaris, P. acnes infection occupies only a small subcategory, and few peoples' acne is solely the result of it. Our product cannot be taken for a wide-range anti-acne agent, therefore, there is the challenge that it would not be commonly purchased. We aim to solve this problem by further expanding the function range of our Acneutralizer and increasing its convenience of application. We could add AMPs that kill more acne pathogenic bacteria, compounds commonly seen in non-antimicrobial products, such as salicylic acid, and integrate the protein adhesives with PHA coating, which is suggested by our team of partnership, NWU-CHINA-A.
