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  • Is the cosmetics industry about to get a makeover?

  • For centuries, it has exploited natural resources by extracting ingredients from animals and plants.

  • If you were to turn over one of the bottles that are probably in your bathroom, 8 out of 10 of each of the ingredients would be sourced through unsustainable methods.

  • But with consumers now demanding more sustainable and ethical products...

  • I'll be sharing those brands that are truly, truly, truly cruelty free.

  • ... could gene editing technology help the industry to clean up its act?

  • We're gonna be able to produce molecules that are better for the environment than getting them from their natural source.

  • And could this ultimately make cosmetics cheaper?

  • (Could cosmetics get a makeover?)

  • Sharksat the top of the marine food chain, they have few natural predators,

  • except humans, who have hunted them for the plentiful supply of an oil they produce in rich quantities called "squalene".

  • Squalene, which is commonly turned into a chemical called "squalane", is a key ingredient in skincare products.

  • Squalane is a chemical that has been used in the cosmetics industry for decades.

  • If you've used sunscreen or if you've used moisturizer, chances are pretty good that that product contains squalane.

  • There are no official figures for how many sharks have been killed annually in order to harvest their precious oil, but it's believed to be in the millions.

  • But one company has found a way to reduce this degradation of the oceans.

  • And it says this is a game changer for the whole industry.

  • Let's assume that there's about 10 grams per liter of squalene introduced at this very moment.

  • Sunil Chandran is a scientist at Californian biotech company, Amyris.

  • Amyris says it now supplies the majority of the world's squalane, all of it made in a lab, without any shark involvement.

  • Worldwide, there's anywhere from, you know, 2,500 to 4,000 metric tons of squalane that's produced.

  • Today, using the Amyris technology, we are right up supplying a little more than 2,000 metric tons.

  • And they're doing it with the latest in gene editing technology, using a field of science called "synthetic biology".

  • Cosmetics brands have often used science to promote their products.

  • Here comes the science bit. Concentrate.

  • And in this case, the science is impressive.

  • Take the shark, which produces squalene in its liver using special proteins called "enzymes".

  • Scientists are able to identify which of the shark's genes are responsible for producing those enzymes.

  • Using the latest gene editing technology, they take a microbe, which is a tiny organism with the ability to self replicate, and break open its genome.

  • Scientists insert the genetic code of the enzymes into the microbe, which is often yeast.

  • The yeast is placed in a fermentation vat and fed with sugar and other ingredients to fuel cell division and produce squalene or another molecule called "farnesyn".

  • Sugar is used as the main energy source to fuel this reaction and the process has less environmental impact on the natural world than hunting sharks.

  • We can actually replace the production of all the squalene in the world.

  • We can replace three million sharks that are killed by using sugar cane that's grown on one square kilometer of land. That's it.

  • Since 2011, Amyris has been selling squalane to some of the biggest cosmetics companies in the world as well as in their own luxury brand, Biossance.

  • Squalane has become an increasingly popular and well-known ingredient in skincare today, endorsed by celebrities and influencers alike.

  • My favorite squalane omega repair moisturizer.

  • Squalene is just one of many ingredients used in the cosmetics industry which are extracted from animals.

  • Face masks using collagen from cows, shampoos using keratin source from sheep, eye shadow colors from farmed crushed beetles...

  • Consumers increasingly say they don't want animal-derived products.

  • In the last decade or so, consumers have started becoming more aware of where the ingredients in the cosmetics are being sourced from,

  • and they are starting to demand that their products be animal-free, be ethically sourced, be sustainable.

  • Gene editing technology has the potential to replace all of these animal-derived ingredients.

  • Some brands have moved away from animal sourcing and replaced ingredients such as fats with alternatives made from petrochemicals.

  • But many consumers don't like this, either, and are looking for so-called "natural" alternatives.

  • It means there's more pressure to find plant-based alternatives, and that brings more environmental problems.

  • Take rose oil, which is used in perfumes.

  • It takes around 200,000 petals to make five milliliters.

  • So that's not only a significant volume of roses that need to be grown,

  • but think about the land usage and the water usage that comes along with it, which has become increasingly problematic with the changing climate.

  • That's not the only problem in harvesting plants.

  • Trees cut down for their perfumed wood are facing extinction.

  • Wildflowers are at risk.

  • And most modern cosmetics contain palm oil, which is a major driver of deforestation.

  • I think people think about plants as a very nature-friendly way of making ingredients, but actually, that's turning out not to be the case.

  • So, could gene editing technology help to reduce the cosmetic industry's dependence on plants as well as animals?

  • Yes, say some scientists who argue that synthesizing ingredients currently made from plant ingredients will make the industry more sustainable and environmentally responsible.

  • What we see is the cosmetic industry is growing pretty substantially and that means that we need to have environmentally-friendly sources for these molecules,

  • and biosynthesis is an environmentally-friendly way to derive many of these molecules.

  • Instead of growing, for example, roses on a significant plot of land that requires a lot of energy to maintain and a lot of water,

  • What you can do is, you can design a microbe that can effectively produce that same type of material

  • without the carbon footprint, without needing that much land, without needing that much water, and without needing that much energy.

  • But are these claims to reduce dependence on plants and animals something of a good marketing story for the cosmetics industry which causes more environmental damage in other ways?

  • 120 billion units of single-use packaging are created by the cosmetics industry every year.

  • Almost 9 in 10 products from major brands contain microplastics.

  • Here again, some biotech companies say technology could be the answerby engineering microbes which can break down plastics.

  • Every waste product that is out there, there is a microbe that uses that as a food source.

  • So, it is really interesting to think about designing microbes or finding microbes that can help us break down plastics and also not be causing harmful effects in our environment.

  • Of the total ingredients used in the global cosmetics market, it's estimated around 10% are produced from gene-edited microbes.

  • But could that figure increase?

  • Here in the lab of biotech company Ginkgo, Jason Kelly's team have signed multi-million-dollar deals with some of the world's leading fragrance companies to develop perfumes from gene-edited microbes.

  • What you're looking at here is each one of those little jars is a small brewery, it's a little... it's what we call a fermenter.

  • But think of it like a very small brewery.

  • But despite interest from big brands, the multi-billion-dollar question is: Will perfumes made using gene editing become the norm in beauty aisles?

  • That may depend on whether scientists can design microbes to produce large enough quantities of the required ingredient.

  • Once you've got a strain and you've put the DNA in to have it make one of these products, you're not actually done, right?

  • What you need to do is then figure out the best way to grow it.

  • Scientists must tinker with the microbe's metabolism and its newly-inserted DNA to see how efficiently it's producing the desired molecules.

  • It's a process that can take months or even years, but it's become quicker and more commercially viable as gene editing technology has become more affordable.

  • So, I know it's loud in here, but that's the sound of DNA being read on a machine like one of these DNA sequencers.

  • We can actually look at the genomes of thousands of bacterial cells in one single run.

  • It's really incredible, like, if you look at how this technology has improved over the last 10 years, it's almost a million-fold cost-reduction in reading DNA.

  • Currently, it can take between 6 months to 3 years to find the right combination of conditions for the microbes to flourish.

  • But the low cost of sequencing enables companies like Jason's to keep trying new versions.

  • And this low cost means savings could be passed on to the brands.

  • If we're replacing an ingredient, like, you currently extract a molecule from a plant, for example, for fragrance or something like that,

  • you know, often, a customer will be trying to see something like a 50% lower cost of goods by production via fermentation compared to the old process.

  • And there is another reason why gene-edited products may become more prevalent and commercially viable in the cosmetics world.

  • Light-touch regulation.

  • Unlike industries such as pharmaceuticals, regulations in America for cosmetics allow scientists comparative freedom to experiment with gene-edited ingredients.

  • I think that the cosmetics sit in kind of a sweet spot where the regulatory risk is lower than for pharmaceuticals,

  • and the value of the molecule is higher than it is, say, for commodity chemicals like plastics or biofuels.

  • And in the EU, which has some of the strictest laws around genetically-modified products, cosmetics companies can take advantage of a distinction regulators see as crucial.

  • The organism that is designed, that is modified is used to make the ingredient, but the ingredient itself is not what is referred to as genetically modified.

  • So, an ingredient that is produced through a genetically-modified organism might be nature-identical and effectively impossible to differentiate.

  • It might even be safer than traditional plant-based or animal-based sourcing methods.

  • It looks like synthetic biology could be good news for the cosmetics industry,

  • but cosmetics might also be a lifesaver for the synthetic biology industry.

  • In 2021, companies in this sector saw their value crash as they struggled to find a market for their technologies in areas such as biofuels.

  • And what also excites some scientists in this field is the possibility of sourcing previously inaccessible molecules and creating brand-new products.

  • I think the future is very bright for this technology.

  • I think that we're gonna be able to produce nearly every molecule in cosmetics using this technology, and not only that, we're gonna have molecules that you can't currently get in cosmetics.

  • What will be possible once we start tapping into other natural molecules that we haven't even been able to play with yet?

  • I'm Alok Jha, science correspondent at "The Economist".

  • To read more on this topic, please click on the link.

  • Thanks for watching, and please don't forget to subscribe.

Is the cosmetics industry about to get a makeover?

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