WORCESTER, MASS. — This cold, dry winter is leaving many of us with flaky, dry skin.
A Worcester scientist is on a mission to help ease the harsh effects of winter by creating a skin care line using an organism that survived the harshest of conditions in outer space.
“I never thought I’d be standing here working on cosmetics in my life,” said Dr. Kyle Landry, the President and Co-Founder of Delavie Sciences.
That’s because Dr. Kyle Landry went from the food science field, to biodefense, and then space. But in his time working with NASA, he made an out of this world discovery.
“The NASA scientists were like, hey, Kyle, we have this really cool organism that when put outside of the space stations for 18 months survived,” said Dr. Landry. “Do you want to see if you can create anything from it?”
After studying it for a year and a half, Dr. Landry learned even though the organism was bombarded by radiation while in space, it was able to protect itself.
“So we discovered that it activates things called sirtuins,” said Dr. Landry. “Sirtuins are these enzymes, they’re ancient enzymes that help repair and protect your cells. So it actually helps minimize and prevent the formation of wrinkles at the cellular level. And so we decided to make a product from that.”
Dr. Landry, along with his team of research and development scientists, grow the organisms in a lab in Worcester.
“This is the actual bacteria that we use to create the ingredients in our products,” Dr. Landry showed.
Then he works with several companies to bring it up to scale.
“This line here is our Aeonia line,” said Dr. Landry. “This highlights the bacillus lysate ingredient. All of them are certified space technology.”
Delavie, which is French for ‘from life,’ is a skincare collection that features the patented ingredient. It is also the first cosmetic company to have a certified space technology ingredient that helps promote skin longevity.
“This is my pride and joy, this organism,” said Dr. Landry.
Dr. Landry also discovered a fungus in a forest of western Massachusetts that grows at about 130 degrees Fahrenheit.
“We basically go where the boundaries of life are pushed because we believe those organisms hold the key,” said Dr. Landry.
This fungus helped create a second patented ingredient in collaboration with Harvard that’s used in other Delavie products. And Dr. Landry is continuing to follow the journey that science is taking him on to expand the Delavie line and create new innovations.
“And that’s led to all the crazy discoveries we have here because we’re not limited to thinking, oh, we can only do this,” said Dr. Landry. “We’re like, what can’t we do?”
Dr. Landry also found an organism 5,000 feet underground that produces a compound to protect against UVB radiation, which is what can cause skin cancer. He’s currently working to develop an ingredient that he hopes will be added to sunscreens.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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