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Scientists are on their way to creating a new generation of sunscreens that boost the skin's ability to protect itself from skin cancer, with effects that could last for days rather than hours. This ScienCentral News video has more.
With lifestyle changes over the last few decades— people have more leisure time than they used to, are spending a lot more time outdoors, and are taking more tropical vacations— one out of every three new cancers diagnosed in America is skin cancer. "Most skin cancers are related to sun exposure," explains John Carucci, Director of Mohs Micrographic and Dermatologic Surgery at Weill Medical College of Cornell University. "Intense sun exposure increases our risk for developing skin cancers," he says; other factors include fair skin and light colored hair and eyes.
Chris Kostanoski, a homemaker from West Islip, New York, grew up enjoying the sunny summer days outdoors. She was unaware that the sun's ultraviolet (UV) rays were damaging her skin, until she was diagnosed with skin cancer in 2001. "We weren't conscious of sunscreen and the damage that the sun did to your skin," she says. "We even sat at the beach with foil shields baking us, and you pay the price for it later in life."
The damage Kostanoski suffered went well below the surface of her skin; it went into her cells, down to her DNA. The sun's UV radiation can cause damage to many different parts of the cell, but when it affects the genetic material it can give rise to mutations and eventually result in out-of-control growth of cells that is associated with cancer.
New Hope on the Horizon
Dermatologist Barbara Gilchrest and her research team at Boston University School of Medicine have created a lotion that protects against the UV rays from inside the cells. Filled with tiny fragments of DNA, it actually boosts the skin's ability to cope with the damaging UV rays by kick-starting the DNA repair process in the skin cells, even before exposure to the sun.
Gilchrest and her team tested the lotion on hairless mice. When it was applied to the skin, the cells responded to the new lotion in the same way that they normally respond to UV-induced DNA damage. Part of this reaction is to set up the repair process and prepare its repair capacity to respond to the next injury. "If you provide cells with these DNA fragments they trick the cell into believing the DNA has been damaged even though it has not," Gilchrest explains. "Over the next 24 or 48 hours the cells induce this repair capacity so that they are much better prepared to handle the UV insult, when it comes, than they would have been otherwise." This protective response enhances the skin's protection against DNA damage from the sun for up to five days, preventing mutations and reducing the occurrence of skin cancer. "Pretreatment is the key," Gilchrest says, "and intermittent use of [the lotion] while going out in the sun."
The team's results show for the first time that "you can add something topically to the skin that will make that skin better able to handle DNA damage," Gilchrest says. "We think this is a major advance and should be very helpful in reducing the epidemic of skin cancer in America."
Gilchrest hopes that the new lotion can one day be combined with conventional sunscreens to offer total protection. Today's sunscreens work passively, lying on the surface of the skin and minimizing the damage by reflecting or absorbing the UV rays. "It would be great if we could actually just apply something and reverse the damage of the sun," says Carucci, who thinks protecting from the inside of cells could be the future of sun protection. "I think it holds great potential."
Meanwhile, Kostanoski is cancer-free, after treatment at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and follows her dermatologist's advice to wear protective clothing, plenty of sunscreen, or just stay out of the sun— particularly during the middle of the day. "I do go out in the sun, I'm not going to say I don't, but my habits have changed dramatically," she says.
With this new generation of sunscreens still several years from reaching store shelves, "the most important thing to concentrate on is the here and now," Carucci reminds us. "What we have to do here and now is just minimize our risk, and minimize our exposure to ultraviolet radiation." Carucci recommends avoiding intense sunlight for long periods of time, particularly between the hours of 10 am and 4 pm, and most importantly, applying sunscreens frequently and remembering to reapply after swimming or sweating.
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