Stem Cell Cream to Make You Look Younger
By Cho Jin-seo
Staff Reporter
The desire to stay young has created the bizarre trend of drinking liquefied placenta and of getting placental extract injections among the aged. A more advanced way of using the afterbirth for adults has been conceived of in South Korea.
RNL Bio, a bio technology venture based in Seoul, said Tuesday that it has developed a method to make cosmetic creams from human stem cells obtained from placentas.
The company said the method has been approved by the Personal Care Products Council of the United States, meaning that it can now be used in producing commercial cosmetic products.
The new skin cream does not actually contain stem cells: Instead it contains certain human proteins, which can stimulate adult skin cells to replenish themselves faster and therefore remain healthier, younger and wrinkle-free, the firm said. Those proteins are produced from stem cells in the lab, which are extracted from human placentas.
``It will have an explosive impact on the industry, since it is the first case of using stem cell technology in everyday life,'' said Kim Hye-kyung, a public relations official of RNL Bio.
She said that the firm is in the final stage of negotiations with P&G, the global consumer goods giant, about mass-producing the stem cell cream.
Though it hasn't been a very popular treatment, using the placenta in medicines and cosmetics is a centuries-old custom in both Eastern and Western cultures. Skin creams and drinks using ingredients from human or animal placentas are selling at online and offline stores in South Korea as well as in many other countries. Some oriental medicine doctors here also encourage their patients to use placenta creams or get placenta shots.
The uniqueness of RNL Bio's cream is that it uses the stem cells which are much more efficient in stimulating the skin, Kim said.
``Other placenta creams use liquefied placenta, which is obtained by heating it to over 100 degrees Celsius, and the process reduces the number of active proteins. But our stem-cell ingredients are very active and very stable,'' Kim said.
RNL Bio became famous in February when it said it was cloning a dog named Bogger for a Californian woman at $150,000, which will become the first case of commercial dog cloning in the world if all goes to plan.