SBIR Phase I: Building the sunscreen of the future

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的广泛影响是开发和分析验证一种新的生物启发材料作为替代紫外线（UV）过滤器，它将满足当前的社会和环境需求，这将最大限度地减少太阳辐射的影响，而不会对人类健康或海洋生态系统构成风险。这一点很重要，因为现有的商业防晒霜存在五个重大问题：(1)很大一部分市场上的防晒霜在保护皮肤免受紫外线辐射方面是无效的。(2)超过65%的非矿物防晒霜含有对海洋生态系统（即海洋珊瑚礁）有毒的化学物质。(3)许多常见的、传统的防晒化学物质甚至可能对人体不安全，目前正由监管机构重新评估。(4)更安全的矿物防晒霜由于其负面的审美特性，包括在皮肤上形成厚厚的白色涂层，因此很少被采用。(5)早期证据表明，越来越多的人担心，新的基于微纳米的矿物防晒霜配方在视觉上更吸引人，但也对皮肤和环境有毒性影响。拟议中的技术创新旨在取代目前使用的技术，成为更安全、更环保、更有效的替代品。拟议中的项目将克服三项技术障碍，将一种新成分引入防晒产品市场。第一个目标是简化本研究中提出的核心分子类的化学反应，最终将原材料的生产成本降低到市场可行的水平。第二项是评估它们在一系列防晒系数下的效用和功效。除了它们的紫外线过滤性能外，还将评估配方的光稳定性和热稳定性。第三是调查在配方中提出的材料的安全性，包括细胞相容性和抗微生物测定。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to develop and analytically validate a new, bio-inspired material as an alternative ultraviolet (UV)-filter that would fill an immediate societal and environmental need, which is to minimize the impacts of solar radiation without posing a risk to human health or the marine ecosystem. This is important, as existing commercial sunscreens suffer from five significant problems: (1) A large proportion of marketed sunscreens are ineffective at protecting skin from UV radiation. (2) Over 65% of non-mineral sunscreens contain chemicals that are toxic to marine ecosystems (i.e., ocean’s coral reefs). (3) Many common, conventional sunscreen chemicals may not even be human-safe and are currently being re-evaluated by regulatory bodies. (4) There is poor adoption of the safer, mineral-based sunscreens due to their negative aesthetic properties including a thick, white coating on the skin. (5) Early evidence indicates growing concerns that newer micro- and nano-based formulations of mineral sunscreens, which are visually more appealing, also have toxic impacts on both skin and the environment. The proposed technology innovation is aimed at replacing those currently in use as a safer, ecofriendly, and more effective alternative. The proposed project will overcome three technical hurdles involved in bringing a new ingredient into the suncare market. The first is aimed at simplifying the chemistry of the core class of molecules proposed in this work to ultimately reduce the production costs of the raw material to a market viable rate. The second will be to assess their utility and effectiveness in formulations at a range of sun protection factors. In addition to their UV-filtering performance, the photo- and thermal- stabilities of the formulations will be evaluated. The third is to investigate the safety of the proposed materials in formulations including cytocompatibility and anti-microbial assays.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.