For five years, it operated in stealth mode, away from the spotlight. Now Outer Bio has finally come out of the shadows, and everyone is talking about it. Michael Polansky leads the startup as CEO, alongside Lady Gaga on the board of directors, but it\u2019s not just the famous names that are grabbing people\u2019s attention. The technology it has developed to study the skin is called Yuna, a platform capable of keeping full-thickness human skin alive outside the body for about four weeks. This is much longer than traditional ex vivo models and allows for the observation of processes such as collagen remodeling, inflammation, and cellular senescence, which take weeks to develop. <\/p>\n\n
The idea behind Outer Bio stems from a limitation in research: many skincare tests are conducted on simplified models, whereas real skin is much more complex. Yuna, in fact, utilizes the epidermis, dermis, various cell types, and immune functions, with samples sourced from donors of different ages, genders, and skin types. Each test can generate over 30,000 data points, and to date, the platform has collected more than 10 terabytes of proprietary data from over 300 donors and 10,000 treatments. <\/p>\n\n
The data is used to train machine learning models capable of predicting which compounds might work before testing them on the skin. The results of the experiments are then fed back into the system, making subsequent predictions increasingly accurate. The goal is not only to find the next skincare ingredient, but to understand how the skin changes over time and which biological mechanisms can be modified. Outer Bio\u2019s virtual library already includes 5.9 million compounds. <\/p>\n\n