Crystal engineering fuses functional beauty compounds for synergistic benefits
26 Sep 2023 | Circe Scientific
Circe Scientific is scaling a molecular technology called “crystal engineering,” which merges an anti-aging extract of blueberries with a natural molecule found in the human body to create a multifunctional “cocrystal” that stimulates more effective absorption by the skin. It is also applicable to a diverse array of cosmetic and nutrition applications.
This is Benjamin Ferrer for Personal Care Insights, and I'm joined by David Valley, and he's a pharmacist and also the sales director for Sirche Scientific, here to speak to us about an interesting technology called crystal engineering for beauty applications.
So, let's just dive right into it.
David, can you please explain in a few words what crystal engineering is all about and how it functions?
Crystal engineering is about studying and applying the properties of solid substances, more specifically solid substances that can be solved or that have become solid after being in solution.
This is something that's very important in the pharmaceutical industry and of course in the nutrosurgical and cosmetic industry too when you want to understand how your your substance is going to behave in solution or in becoming salt in one way or another.
Also, let's say that different substances are going to have different crystal shapes or different crystal structures when they crystallize.
And these crystal structures are going to have different properties.
This means that by changing the crystal structure, you may have a more stable product or a product that solves faster or slower or has a higher dissolution, let's say a higher dissolution rate and a higher solution concentration.
So it's a, it's a very fascinating field where you can.
Fine tune the properties of the ingredients and how they are going to behave in your formulas.
Yes, and so, can you explain the technicalities behind, creating this co-crystal, as you, as you put it, and, what can be achieved with crystal engineering and what are some of the practical examples and applications?
OK, let's, let's see.
Normally, a pure substance is going to have maybe between 1 and 5 different crystalline forms or crystalline structures which are called polymorphs.
And that is going to give you a somewhat wide spectrum of properties.
But one very recent field of development is that crystallizing two or more substances together to form a different crystalline lattice which shares the properties of the two ingredients and allows you to give one of the ingredients the properties of the other ingredient.
This makes us capable of having a Low soluble product becoming highly soluble or slow dissolving product to become a faster dissolving product or even a low stable product to become a more stable product.
So this is really giving us the chance to enhance some ingredients in ways that were impossible before because you are enhancing the ingredient on its own, not, not even after formulation, before formulation, so you can also formulate it and enhance the enhanced ingredient again and get a double enhancement.
This is, what we do with with at Sirse Crystal.
We're specializing in finding the right partner for every substance that needs to be enhanced.
Tirse crystal, Tirte scientific is, is focused mainly in enhancing ingredients that need this little extra push to unlock new properties.
Some ingredients are going to be sold only in very fatty creams, so maybe the texture on this, on this, on the face is not going to be nice with crystal engineering we can make them dissolved in, in, in watery solutions, so the texture on the skin is going to be very nice, no, not so oily, and at the same time it can give you very good penetration into the skin.
So that's what we do.
We, we focus on.
On finding the right partner to this star ingredient that did not shine before because it did not reach the right target.
Now with our crystal engineering we can make a product that could not be in some formula to be compatible with that formula that could not penetrate the skin to penetrate the skin much better that, so it's, it's, it opens a lot of possibilities.
Our first launch within the cosmetic industry is, is 11 big example for us which is Terra Youth.
Through youth is a co-crystal between terostyvine and picolinic acid.
Terresty bean is, is a natural extract that you can find in in blueberries, and picolic acid is, it's a metabolite of, of the human body.
It's, it's a natural metabolite.
Together they allow terrestril bean to be dissolved properly in aqueous solutions to increase the absorption, or be it orally or on the, on the, on the skin.
And to reach the cells and unleash a level of activity that was not possible before.
If you are getting 10 times more absorption and the product was originally very potent but did not reach the right targets, now you can have a product that's reaching the right targets.
And so in our case, as we have a very nice platform to select the right components, we, we have, it says a number of components to play with and this allows us to look for.
Something that may have synergistic effects in this case, picolinic acid acid helps not only improving the properties of, of, of terrostyvine but makes a very nice match made in heaven and it's a Increasing the antioxidant properties of terrosty bean, increasing the, anti-inflammatory properties, increasing the, detoxifying properties.
So in the end, the youth is not only more potent than terosty bene because it penetrates more or it can be used in aqueous solutions, but also because the, the, the double effect is synergistic and, and the original properties have also been increased, but that's actually.
Something that comes from this specific combination, not from general crystal engineering.
So it's all about finding the compatibility between molecules and unlocking new functionalities.
Very interesting.
Yeah, actually, the compatibility between molecules is something that you need to have, knowing the, three dimensional shape of each molecule so that how they are going to fit in the crystal lattice.
It's like playing Tetris, I would say like.
And, and also.
Doing some let's say direct testing in the laboratory to see OK how we can do it, it works it gives us the properties we thought it would get, and, and all that stuff so it's, it's a combination of let's say our technical know-how or digital platform that we prepared.
Specifically to, to study the geometry of different molecules and how they would feed and what properties they would have and after, after that applying that prediction in the laboratory and checking it out and doing a, let's say a fine tuning with, with the last screening of the molecules, but it's a, it's something that's It's very technical on the lab, but it's, it's amazing and very easy to communicate once you have it, because once you have it, it's OK.
We, we enhance the ingredient, we unlock new properties, we, we got, something to behave as it would in the best theoretical way.
So it's, it's, it's very, very nice, very fine to have it.
Very interesting.
And can you also quickly share some of the things that you're working on, on the pipeline for the future launches?
Yes, our first launch is, as we said, Terra Youth.
Actually Terra Youth has a sister brand which is Theovita.
Both are same co-crystal in the beginning but with different specification and particle size and stuff like that.
So one is focused on, on the oral use and nutraceuticals.
The other one is focused on the topical use and the cosmetics.
The next launch is going to be.
A betacitosterolco crystal that's going to be a Most probably mainly for the nutritional industry because it's, it's a cholesterol lowering ingredient that has to be taken orally, and the next two are going to be co-crystal and vitamin D, which is something that can be used both by the cosmetic industry and the In the nutraceutical industry where we have achieved something very important with vitamin D.
Vitamin D is a highly unstable vitamin, and it makes a big mess regarding how you dose it because many companies.
Wanting to have the declared quantity at the end of the shelf life, maybe put twice as much as the declared quantity.
Others just put the declared quantity, but, but by half shelf life it's less than 50%.
So taking the right dose of vitamin D is, is, is difficult, and for the industry having a vitamin D that's stable, it's, it's very advantageous.
Also, it's something that will help with some topical vitamin D products.
The other product that we're doing is, is, , stabilized Wiinol.
Wiinol is, is the reduced form of, of enzyme Q10.
And it's more be available and slightly more active than ubiquino, which would be the oxidized form.
We have been able to improve the be availability and maintain it stable so it does not oxidize before it reaches the body, and this is something that's going to be very, very nice both for the cosmetic industry on creams and for the nutraceutical industry in oral products that would be next year's launches.
