There Might Soon Be A Vaccine Against Acne

If you suffer from acne, there might soon be a vaccination to help...

Everyone suffers from breakouts and bad skin days, but severe acne affects thousands of people in the UK. This not only affects peoples skin – but their self-esteem too.

There are some prescribed drugs (roaccutaine for example) that can help, but these often come with a lot of side effects. This means they’re not suitable for everyone to use. And so for many, the only way to treat acne is to cover it up…

Enter = the acne vaccine.

Okay so it’s not a thing right now, but scientists in a lab at the University of California are working towards it.

Of course, developing a vaccine for acne is tricky.

“Acne is caused by P. acnes bacteria that are with you your whole life. We couldn’t create a vaccine for the bacteria because P. acnes are good for you” says Eric C. Huang, the project’s lead researcher.

“But we found an antibody to a toxic protein that P. acnes bacteria secrete on skin — the protein is associated with the inflammation that leads to acne.”

In short what this means is the vaccine could block the negative, acne-causing effects without killing the good bacteria.

It’s been tested on skin biopsies collected from acne patients – and so far, it works! “The next step is testing it on patients in clinical trials,” says Huang.

If the acne vaccine was to become a reality it could definitely help a lot of people. Fingers crossed and YAY FOR SCIENCE.

The post There Might Soon Be A Vaccine Against Acne appeared first on Look Magazine.