According to Joshua Zeichner, an acne specialist and director of cosmetic and clinical research in dermatology at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York: “The incidence of adult female acne is increasing every year."
And apparently, "no one really knows why. It’s like having a complacent personality versus an argumentative one - histrionic skin fights back against bacteria we’re all covered in and breaks out.”
Considering the growing rate of adult acne, we are absolutely delighted to hear that scientists are doing something about it - in the form of a nifty vaccine.
According to Allure, a lab at the University of California is working to abolish adult acne forever.
However developing a vaccination for acne definitely has its complications:
“Acne is caused, in part, by P. acnes bacteria that are with you your whole life - and we couldn’t create a vaccine for the bacteria because, in some ways, P. acnes are good for you,” explained Eric C. Huang, who is the vaccine project’s lead researcher.
Huang continued, explaining that “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,” which basically means that the vaccine has the potential to stop the negative effects of P. acnes - YAY!
The vaccine has been tested on skin samples, but Eric Huang said that “The next step is testing it on patients in clinical trials.”
Hopefully, the trials all go well, and we will all be totally acne free within a couple of years - we'll be waiting with bated breath.
