AI for biology
Outer Biosciences trains a skincare model on human tissue kept alive for a month
Keeping surgical skin viable for weeks rather than days lets the company observe collagen remodelling, feeding results back into a model that proposes new compounds.
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The short version
- Outer Biosciences, founded in 2022 by Michael Polansky, trains AI models on living human skin tissue to identify new skincare compounds.
- A proprietary support system keeps donated surgical tissue viable for up to a month against an industry norm of days, allowing observation of slow processes such as collagen remodelling and barrier repair.
- The model predicts which untested chemicals will benefit specific skin functions; results from tissue testing feed back to improve it, producing roughly one candidate every six weeks with six active leads.
- The company has raised about $23m and employs 19 people near Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Keeping surgical skin viable for weeks rather than days lets the company observe collagen remodelling, feeding results back into a model that proposes new compounds.