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Performance coach, detail-loving educator, big-thinking entrepreneur, podcaster, mama, passionate adventurer, and health optimization activist here to help people transform their lives, and reach their highest potential! All rolled into one.

I'm cLAUDIA!

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If you're here to take your business, relationships and life to the next level, you've come to the right place!

 Looking and Feeling 10 Years Younger, Using a Key Peptide to Eliminate Senescent Cells, the Surprising Truth about Retinol, Understanding Skin Longevity, Trends and much more!

the Longevity & Lifestyle Podcast

Today’s guest is Carolina Reis Oliveira, co-founder and CEO of OneSkin, a biotech company developing solutions to target skin aging at the molecular level and extend the healthy years of life. Carolina is leading the development of the first anti-senescence topical product designed to promote skin health, which can be bought from their website OneSkin.co.

She is a co-inventor of 3 patents, co-author of numerous scientific publications, and has been an advocate of skin health in the longevity community.
Carolina holds a biochemistry degree and a Ph.D. in stem cell biology and is an alumnus of IndieBio, the world's leading biotechnology accelerator. She relocated to Silicon Valley from Latin America in 2016 to co-found One Skin,

In this episode we talk about the importance and correlation of skin inflammation and chronic disease, the surprising truth about retinol, using the epigenetic profile of our tissues as a marker to understand if an intervention is really improving our skin on the cellular and molecular level, successful morning routines, dedicating our lives to serve others, the importance of positive attitude towards life, using key peptide molecules to eliminate senescent cells, making you look and feel 10 years younger, the Science behind OneSkin, understanding skin longevity, trends and much more!

About the episode & our guest

"We believe there's no reason you can't be dancing on a table at 80 years young.. I know where I want to leave my mark in the world." - Carolina Reis Oliveira, Co-Founder & CEO at OneSkin

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Dr Carolina Reis

Episode 04

Disclaimer: Please note, to avoid any unnecessary headaches, Longevity & Lifestyle LLC owns the copyright in and to all content in and transcripts of The Longevity & Lifestyle Podcast, with all rights reserved, as well as the right of publicity. You are welcome to share parts of the transcript (up to 500 words) in other media (such as press articles, blogs, social media accounts, etc.) for non-commercial use which must also include attribution to “The Longevity & Lifestyle Podcast” with a link back to the longevity-and-lifestyle.com/podcast URL. It is prohibited to use any portion of the podcast content, names or images for any commercial purposes in digital or non-digital outlets to promote you or another’s products or services.

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PODCAST EPISODE SHOW NOTES

  • Carolina describes the mission of OneSkin Technologies; using science to keep our bodies functioning well, so we can continue to do the things we love. Carolina explains how levels of cell function in our skin affect our overall health. Can inflammation, which can contribute to chronic diseases, be prevented by a strong skin barrier? [02.50]
  • Carolina discusses how her history with Retinol is both personal and professional. What is the long-term effect of Retinol use on skin tissue?[07.19] 
  • How did Carolina find her way from a small town in Brazil to starting a new company in the Bay Area? Carolina also discusses her inherited superpower - Sleep!  [11.54]
  • The story of how OneSkin’s four Brazilian co-founders came together with the goal of taking science from the world of academia to people’s everyday lives. How is it possible to live and work together?[16.21] 
  • Carolina details the quest to avoid animal testing by using new cell growth technology. What is the difference between using this technology in Brazil and the US? And what’s wrong with current approach to anti-ageing? [18.57]
  • As an early-riser, Carolina’s morning routine allows space for meditation and exercise, and even some time for reading. Carolina also reveals her appreciation for her late father. What’s the key inspiring message she draws from his example? [23.31] 
  • Cultivating a positive approach to life is, for Carolina, far from a solo venture. How does Carolina deal with moments of feeling down? [26.54] 
  • Carolina goes in-depth into the philosophy and science behind OneSkin’s approach to skin health and longevity. Is it possible to halt the “bad apple effect” of damaged cells building up and causing inflammation and age-related diseases? How do peptides enter the equation? [28.54] 
  • Carolina advocates for an approach of “prevention rather than reversal or repair” when it comes to skin ageing. At what age and where on the body would the OneSkin topical supplement OS-01 need to be applied? The story of OneSkin’s validation process is revealed and how, inspired by Horvath’s clock, OneSkin developed an algorithm to measure the skin’s biological. What exciting new ground is OneSkin breaking in the anti-ageing industry. [36.34] 
  • Carolina gives us a window into how people have begun to embrace the science behind new health technologies, and shares a funny anecdote about how her interest in her biological age affected one particular postal worker. [40.11] 
  • Carolina outlines the positive trends in the longevity space, including the benefits of owning and understanding our own health data and of preventative therapies. The shift in medicine from diagnosis and prescription to investigation of root causes, and the outlook for the future, is discussed. [42.14]
  • Carolina describes what lessons she took from failing to establish her company in Brazil. How does Carolina manage to deal with negative feedback and stay positive? [46.16]
  • Carolina introduces us to her most exciting recent purchase, the GlycanAge test, and explains how it works. The Continuous Glucose Monitor is also considered, and added to Carolina’s shopping list. Which well-known quote does Carolina live by? When it comes to health and longevity, what reading does Carolina recommend? Carolina tells us where we can find more information about OneSkin, and leaves us with her parting message. [53.38]

PEOPLE MENTIONED

TERMINOLOGY

“So our mission is not only to keep our skin looking great, but keep our whole body healthy, stronger so we can prevent this inflammation of affecting our body's levels of inflammation.”

“They [anti-aging products] are trying to give you like a temporary solution, but they are not addressing the main cause of aging.”

“And in general, I always had always this positive attitude towards life. I think of course life will bring us some hard times, but it's all about how we responded to those challenges. “

“So if we can start treating and protecting our skin when our skin is still healthy. That's the best time to start.”

“I think we need more and more companies that are really science backed.”

“But I see that in the future, there will be a push for us to develop therapies that we will start taking after thirties, forties when we are still in good health. So we don't need to get to our sixties and seventies with several detrimental diseases."

“we are the owners of our destiny and the, the choices that we make today will really determine how we are going to age.”

“…we have the freedom. We have the ability to educate ourselves, to make the right choices today. We shouldn't be waiting for the magic pill… and this is life!”

MORE GREAT QUOTES 

Claudia von Boeselager: Carolina, it's a pleasure to welcome you today to the Longevity & Lifestyle Podcast! Thank you so much for being here.
Carolina Reis Oliveira: Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here as well.

Claudia von Boeselager: So I'm excited to dive into how you and the team are revolutionizing skin health for longevity at OneSkin, and I'm delighted to help get your story out there for how men and women can rejuvenate the largest organ of the body, our skin. But first I'd love to start with your mission at OneSkin and how this includes, and I quote, "we believe there's no reason you can't be dancing on a table at 80 years young", which I love - one of my life goals is to be out dancing at 94! So this really resonated with me!
Can you tell us briefly about OneSkin and what your mission is?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note, to avoid any unnecessary headaches, Longevity & Lifestyle LLC owns the copyright in and to all content in and transcripts of The Longevity & Lifestyle Podcast, with all rights reserved, as well as the right of publicity. You are welcome to share parts of the transcript (up to 500 words) in other media (such as press articles, blogs, social media accounts, etc.) for non-commercial use which must also include attribution to “The Longevity & Lifestyle Podcast” with a link back to the longevity-and-lifestyle.com/podcast URL. It is prohibited to use any portion of the podcast content, names or images for any commercial purposes in digital or non-digital outlets to promote you or another’s products or services.

PODCAST EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Carolina Reis Oliveira: Sure. As a scientist, we always want to use science to allow people to have more quality of life and to improve their health. And as a person, I like to enjoy every second of my life. To me, I don't agree that we should accept aging, you know, and the limitations that comes with aging to prevent us doing the things that we love doing.
So our mission is really how we can use science to empower people, to allow people, to be doing things that they love at whatever age, you know, so I love dancing, I love exercising. I love traveling. And the science and technology are evolving to allow us to keep doing those things as we age. So aging shouldn't stop us from doing anything.
And the more science evolves, the more we are learning that this is a very metabolic process that if we understand how we can tweak it, we can really extend the time that we keep our bodies functioning well, so we can, you know, continue to do the things that we love.

Claudia von Boeselager: I love it. Yes. So I hope to see you on the tables!

Carolina Reis Oliveira: I hope we dance together right?

Claudia von Boeselager: For sure for sure! I'm up for it! I've even tried Samba, but it's very difficult. I, after about one minute, I was like, woo. So respect. Can you talk about the importance and correlation of skin inflammation and chronic disease?
Carolina Reis Oliveira: Yes. This is also something that was very interesting. Even for me, when we started to study deeper about skin aging and the correlation with our overall health. Basically we all know that the skin is our largest organ, right.
But a lot of times we don't think of the implications that this organ has to our overall health. So the skin is still... most people will still look at your skin from an aesthetic and beauty perspective, but if this is our largest organ should have a more important function to our health in general.
So it protects our body against microorganisms, infections and water loss, and it's our main physical barrier. And with the aging process. We see a decay in our health and in our in our cells function. And we also see increase of accumulation of damage and inflammation. Because this is such a large organ, even low levels of inflammation that are being produced by our skin can significantly impact our body's level of inflammation.

So there is a very interesting study showing that as we age, our skin barrier weakens and this cause the release of inflammatory signals to our body and this can contribute to chronic diseases such as Alzheimer, cardiovascular disease and cancer. So it's very interesting to think that if we can keep our skin healthy, if we can keep that skin barrier stronger, we may be able to prevent this inflammation to be released to our body and to prevent the onset of those detrimental diseases. So this was a connection that was not very obvious for me, and I'm sure that's not very obvious for a lot of people, but that's why when we think about skin health and the correlation with our general health, it's not only about your face, neck and hands, right? It's about your whole body. So our mission is not only to keep our skin looking great, but keep our whole body healthy, stronger so we can prevent this inflammation of affecting our body's levels of inflammation.

Claudia von Boeselager: Which really highlights that you're the best kept secret that you're not a skincare company, that you're a longevity company. I think it's so interesting to point out that the most important organ and people I think don't think about it as a barrier to inflammation and other diseases. You think of inflammation from the inside, but obviously it's a protective layer from the outside. So excellent that you are really addressing this.
I'd like to move on to retinol, which many people will be familiar with. Retinal for the skin, it's been considered the gold standard, but I understand that your research has uncovered some very interesting things about retinol. Can you tell us about it?
Carolina Reis Oliveira: Yeah. I also have a personal story too, around retinal. Cause I started using, since I was a teenager, I had acne and I was used to be constantly peeling off and later on, you know, and I was like 20 something I continued to use because of its anti-aging effects. And I, again, I was peeling off all the time and thinking that I was doing the right thing to my skin. And once we started researching new molecules to rejuvenate the skin into, or to address the skin aging, we use the retinol as a positive control, more specifically retinoic acid that's the strongest version of a retinol. And what we saw was very interesting because the same effect that I was seeing in my skin, like with skin peeling off, we could see the skins that we grow in the lab so we could see very clearly the upper layers coming out and that cell renewal being promoted.

But what we also saw that was not very expected is that the levels of aging genes. So some markers related to aging, such as physical skin and other inflammatory genes, like IL-6, IL-8 or metalloproteinases were going up. So things that are, you know, on the direction of aging and not the opposite was going up and say, Oh, that's not how we expect the retinol to work. From that point on, I stopped using retinol because I basically realize yes, when we are renovating our skin with retinal, we can induce some damages, some inflammation. It's very common. A lot of people have sensitivity. They get redness.

Claudia von Boeselager: Peeling skin. Yeah.
Carolina Reis Oliveira: Yes. And in a week's time, if we overuse this ingredient, we can exhaust our tissue. Basically, you only have so many STEM cells to be replacing that cells that are being renewed. So my decision was completely to stop because I don't need to have the side effects to have the good effects of retinol. And mainly after we developed our product by replaced by our product. But for people that still like retinol usually what we recommend is not to use too often and also add a product to counteract the you know side effects of retinol. So our products, for example, it helps lower inflammation and helps repairing the damage. So at least that you don't have that damage being accumulated in your skin, that in the long term can cause more harm than good. So you don't want to get at the very old age with very thin skin that's more vulnerable. You have a weaker skin barrier because basically your tissue is exhausted. So you already caused too much insult to your tissue. So that's the alternative that we are bringing for people that don't want to go to that route, or can't go because of sensitive skin or so on. And it's safer and based on our experiments, we also see a more significant effect lowering the markers of aging.

Claudia von Boeselager: So in theory, it's better to just stop retinol altogether? You're very diplomatic saying people should just reduce their use or counter balance it, but in theory, if there is an alternative product now, which we'll get on to, but in essence, it's better to not actually use it, right?

Carolina Reis Oliveira: Yeah. So the thing with retinol is that it can give you, I would say a cosmetic effect in the short term. So some people are looking for that kind of benefits and for those people, yes, you can continue to use if that's your goal but be aware that you can be causing some underlying damage. So that's why we suggest combine with our product. But for those that are more focused on the health of your tissue, then I would completely stop using retinol.

Claudia von Boeselager: That makes sense exactly. Before we dive into all wonderful things around OneSkin, can you tell us a bit more about yourself Carolina and growing up as a free bird?

Carolina Reis Oliveira: Sure. So I'm originally from Brazil. I come from a very small town in Brazil the countryside of Brazil and I left home when I was 15 to I moved to another city to get a better high school education. When I was growing up, my parents, they always educated me to be very independent and to go where ever to pursue my dreams. So I have this memory of my dad almost saying that, Oh, if I need to go to Japan, that's the farthest place from Brazil, I should go if that's where I will, you know, fulfill my goals and my purpose. So I always have this , you know, growing up. And that's I think that too, I also am very I don't have, I'm not afraid of anything moving to a place that I don't know anyone and starting from scratch. I've done this a few times in my life.
The last time was when I moved from Brazil to the US five years ago to start this company. And I didn't know like a single person here in the Bay area. And so everything was very new for me and very challenging in the beginning. But I have that drive that I know where I want to leave my mark in the world, you know, where I can contribute more. And I felt that this was the best opportunity that I had. So I didn't think twice before making that choice. Yeah. And I mean, I'm very fortunate that my family always supported me. It's not easy, but it's very good when you can count on them to give that support so you can yeah continue to pursue your dreams.

Claudia von Boeselager: That sounds amazing that you have such a supportive family and also so visionary. It's not every father that tells his daughter, you can go to Japan across the world to do whatever you have to do. So, yeah. And I also hear that you share a very interesting family trait, one around an area important for longevity, namely sleep. Can you tell us more about that?

Carolina Reis Oliveira: Yeah. That's a very funny trait because we have this, you know, ability to fall asleep like everywhere. It doesn't matter if it's like super noisy, if it's whatever the location sometimes, you know, we all fall asleep. There was one, one occasion that we went to a mass and we were all seated at the same bench. And I looked to my parents, I looked to my brothers, and everyone was like knocked-out.

Claudia von Boeselager: With the head hanging down?

Carolina Reis Oliveira: Yes!

Claudia von Boeselager: And this is in the morning. So you slept at night or were you all out the night before?

Carolina Reis Oliveira: No this was usually we used to go at 7:00 PM. So I think, I don't know. You're like walking around the whole day, the time that you sit and stuff...

Claudia von Boeselager: And is it one of those as my grandfather would call "40 winks?" so it's like the two minutes and then you're up again and you're fine? Or is everyone passed out for an hour?

Carolina Reis Oliveira: No, no I'm like that. I'm just like taking a short nap and then I wake up and I'm ready, you know, to go out and dance...

Claudia von Boeselager: I love it. As my Spanish friend calls it, it's called the disco nap to get you ready to go out!

Carolina Reis Oliveira: Yes exactly. And I mean, in the end, we are very fortunate because we don't have any problems to sleep. So, I mean, there was only one time in my life that I had insomnia that I was very kind of stressed out with the company. But in general, I feel very fortunate that I have like eight hours sleep straight . So that's a blessing, you know, you feel your body completely like reset after that.

Claudia von Boeselager: So you're definitely going to be dancing at 90 on tables with this rejuvenating sleep that you have. Lucky you!
Another incredible part of the story, which I really, really love, especially around female founders, but founders in general, that you are four Brazilian PhD co-founders at OneSkin. Carnival must be the most fun time at OneSkin. How did this unique team come to pass? And you guys must be so close, right?

Carolina Reis Oliveira: Yes. So I met one of my partners at college Marianna. So we did college together. And then when I moved to another city and I joined this lab to do my masters and PhD, that's when I met Alessandra and Juliana. We always shared I think this common desire of translating science, bringing science out of academia to people, and we are always a little bit, you know, thinking out of the box, not , I, I honestly didn't see myself, you know, pursuing the academic career. So I was kind of, you know, pulling, bringing everyone together.

Claudia von Boeselager: The visionary! I love it.
Carolina Reis Oliveira: Yeah. And then Ariana and Juliana, we were always like brainstorming ideas together, how we could start, what kind of approach we could take with our science, with our knowledges. So we started back in Brazil in 2014. And then we were combining our expertise initially to grow human tissues in the lab to replace animal testing.
And then eventually 2016 we had this opportunity to come to the US. So I came, they couldn't come because they were also professors and researchers in Brazil. So then I invited Alessandra to join me. Alessandra got her PhD in skin regeneration, and we were at that point focusing on the skin already.
So Alessandra join me and everything worked so well. Eventually we moved in together. We were afraid if this would work or not like too much time working together. And, you know, living together but we had this such a great connection, great bond. Eventually we were doing everything together exercising, cooking, running.

Claudia von Boeselager: That's incredible.

Carolina Reis Oliveira: Yeah, all sorts of things then. Yeah, it's a partner that, you know, it's for life, you know, we are very blessed to have each other. And of course the other girls as well.

Claudia von Boeselager: That's so special and you know, really rare as you'll know being in San Francisco. And, you know, you hear about the disputes and disagreements between founders and it's really so rare that you can you know live, work together and spend your free time as well. So...
Carolina Reis Oliveira: I know, yeah!

Claudia von Boeselager: You mentioned there about working on replacing animal testing. Can you talk a bit more about what you were doing there and how successful that was?

Carolina Reis Oliveira: Yes. So in 2014 we were finishing our PhD. My PhD was in STEM cell biology and tissue engineering more related to retina diseases. Juliana was working on cardiovascular diseases. So she was producing cardiomyocytes from STEM cells. I was producing retina cells from STEM cells and Marianna was always more related to bioinformatics and genomics. And at that point we saw, we were inspired by a company here in the US Cellular Dynamics that they were the first to start growing the cells, human cells, in the lab. So if you want to develop a drug and if you want to test cardiac toxicity, it's much more reliable that you're testing human cardiomyocyte than you're testing rats or dogs, and this is much more effective. So we saw an opportunity to bring that technology to Brazil, and eventually what we saw that in Brazil the pharmaceutical industry doesn't innovate that much to absorb that kind of technology or this type of cells, but the cosmetic industry was being pushed by the population to really ban animal testing.
So we knew that in Europe it's already banned like for many, many years. In the US, it's still kind of a gray area, but in Brazil, in 2014 there was a huge movement to stop testing animals. And we could basically offer human skins to this industry to test their products. We also realized that the Brazilian market was not big enough to really justify this company. Brazil, also the biotech ecosystem at that point was not well developed. You know, it was not easy to get investment. So that's when we got the opportunity to come to IndieBio in 2016 and here we decided to focus on the skin and eventually not only providing the human tissues, but we, we started to see where we can offer a value that no one else is offering.

So not only providing the tissues, but we saw, for example, this anti-aging market really booming. It's a massive market, but consumers are still lost, right? Which products work, which don't? So how we can help validating the efficacy of those products. So in order to develop a process that would validated if those products work or not, we start to study a lot about aging, aging biology. And our first thought was, if we can measure the age of the tissues that we grow in the lab, then we can test the product. And then we can see if that product is changing the age of that tissue. And we know that we can do that by reading the DNA. So, you know, the methylation, the epigenetic profile of our tissues and ourselves, they are correlated with chronological age and they are the best marker to let you know an intervention is working on the cellular and molecular level.
So that's how it started testing products to see if they would affect the skin biological age. So we could quantify the effects of those products. And eventually what we found out that, okay, all of these are anti-aging products, but they are not really targeting aging. They are trying to make your skin to look better. They are trying to give you like a temporary solution, but they are not addressing the main cause of aging.
And on the other hand, we saw so much going on on the longevity field. A lot of companies is starting to really target those underlying mechanisms. And we thought why no one is doing something on that area related, applied to the skin. And we basically , we combined these two expertise is to develop our product and our technology.

Claudia von Boeselager: I'm really excited to dive into all the details around OneSkin - so incredible what you guys are working on. But before we dive in, I'd like to just ask you a few rapid fire questions to figure out the full picture of the wonderful Carolina. Do you have any particular morning routines to start your day as a success?

Carolina Reis Oliveira: Yeah. I love routines. I love my morning routines. So in the morning I, first thing that I like to do is to meditate at the least for like 10, 15 minutes. I try to clear my mind. I set my intentions for the day . I don't like wake up and start like running around.

Claudia von Boeselager: That's the morning priming, I guess as well. Is there a particular type of meditation that you do?

Carolina Reis Oliveira: I already used some apps. I liked a lot CALM, you know them. Yeah. Today I have my own, I would say how can I say? My protocol? I go to a series of steps, appreciating things, and then thinking about the things that I want to accomplish that day. So yeah, today I do my own meditation, but from time to time I use some app.
And then after that, I, if I have time, I like to read a little bit in the morning because I think the time that also things are more quiet so I can make sure that I have some reading time and then I go to exercize for an hour. I like to get sweaty and get that heart pumping and kind of wake up all my body and cells. So when I come back, I shower, I have my protein smoothie and coffee and I'm ready for the day.

Claudia von Boeselager: What time do you get up at in the morning to get all that done?

Carolina Reis Oliveira: Yeah around the like 5:45- 6:00 AM.

Claudia von Boeselager: So you're an early riser and you get your eight hours of sleep, as we know. So you go to bed nice and early. Amazing. Who would you consider the most successful person of all time and why?

Carolina Reis Oliveira: Wow. That's the very interesting question.

Claudia von Boeselager: Who comes to mind first?

Carolina Reis Oliveira: Well, it's interesting. Some names came to my mind from the techie field, you know, like Steve Jobs was such a revolutionary person and of course, Elon Musk, all this forward thinking people, but I think in the end I thought about my father. My father I think what I can call very successful that he created in our surroundings, you know, where I was raised. Unfortunately he passed away two years ago.

Claudia von Boeselager: Oh, I'm so sorry.

Carolina Reis Oliveira: Thank you. But when this happened, I could really see how much people appreciated everything that he has done. So it's almost like a beautiful ceremony because everyone came so grateful and bringing so much support to us.
And to me at that time, I realize, things that we know, but what do we do in our lives? What we will leave? That legacy, it's what people will remember, right? It's like how much you are touching people's lives. And a lot of times, like not waiting or asking for anything in return. So I think to me if we dedicate our lives to serve others I think we will be the most successful person that we can be.

Claudia von Boeselager: I love that. That's so beautiful, Carolina, thank you for sharing that story.
I'm also very curious - you seem so happy and upbeat, and I would love to know more. We talked about sleep, but what contributes to this high energy and happiness? You talked about your morning routine, but do you have any other particular routines and strategies that you use to cultivate this happiness and upbeatness?

Carolina Reis Oliveira: I like to be around people that are also like that, or even more than that. So my partner he's super high energy and laughing. We have a very funny joke that our laugh , sorry about the funniest one, because we laugh super loud. So we love laughing! Alessandra that's my co-founder, she's also someone that's like super high energy and there is no bedtime for her. I'll always call her like this girl is always on fire because she's always... And in general, I always had always this positive attitude towards life. I think of course life will bring us some hard times, but it's all about how we responded to those challenges. Right. And So I choose always to not let or to do my best, to not let those situations to impact my, my, my humor or my mood.
I always try, when I see that I'm a little down, I always try to think about the things that I'm blessed and I'm grateful for. So, I kind of, you know, recall for that optimism and that the...

Claudia von Boeselager: Those are amazing tools. Yeah. It's so important. You know, more and more that I look into it, the opposite of depression and sadness is actually gratitude, it's not happiness. And really getting that feeling of gratitude as well and having a gratitude practice is so important . Thank you for sharing that.
So now to jump into the exciting work at OneSkin. We talked a bit about the journey, but I'm actually going to quote Peter Diamandis, who is an advisor to you. And he said, "Carolina and her team are using key peptide molecules to eliminate senescent cells, making you look and feel 10 years younger."
What exactly is the science behind what you're developing at OneSkin? And can you explain for non-scientists, what is a peptide? What are senescent cells? And why this is so key for healthy skin longevity?
Carolina Reis Oliveira: Sure. So let's think about the aging process. Age is nothing more than the accumulation of damage in our cells and in our tissues. So since we were born, we are constantly exposed to different types of stress and damage. This could come from our diet from the UVB radiation, pollution and so on . When we are younger, we are able to repair that damage, or we are able to basically eliminate the cells that are not functioning well.
When we grow older, we lose a little bit of that efficiency in terms of DNA repair and this agent or damaged cells, also called senescence cells, they start to build up in our tissues. The problem is that senescence cells, the senescence state is in fact, a tumor preventative mechanism. Because if those cells that damaged, if they continue to replicate, this could cause a cancer. But the problem when they build up in our tissues is that they start secreting inflammatory signals that basically in those other cells around that are healthy to become senescent.

So we call it "the Bad Apple effect" because one bad Apple really ruins all the basket. The senescent cells they work similarly. So this inflammation that starts to spread in our tissue leads to tissue dysfunction that is associated also with several age related diseases. So most of the diseases that we are trying to treat today, they are associated with the accumulation of senescent cells. So one of the strategy that, you know, several companies is using is by targeting senescent cells to eliminate them, to clear them out from our tissue or to prevent the formation of senescence cells so we can keep our tissues healthier longer.
So OneSkin, when we realized that this was a very interesting approach to promote tissue rejuvenation and to maintain the health of our tissues, we decided to search for new molecules that would target or, you know eliminate senescent cells. We have screened over thousands of peptides. So what is a peptide? A peptide is basically a piece of a protein. A protein is found by a chain of amino acids, and a peptide is a sequence that's lower than 50 amino acids and they have biological functions. They can, you know, they can bind to the receptor.
They can promote the activation of some pathways or the deactivation of another pathways inside our cells. What we found that our peptide, so we screened peptide that were able to reduce the burden of senescent cells. So first we found, okay, they can reduce up to 40% the amount of senescent cells in our skin cells, in our tissues.
Now, how do peptides do that? Let's try to understand or recall the mechanism of action. And one experiment that really helped us to answer, I would say, you know, part of this question is when we exposed skin cells to UVB radiation. So this is one of the ways that we can induce cellular senescence.

That means that we can induce healthy cells to become super damaged, that they stop dividing so they are now senescent cells. When we induced that damage and right after we treated for our peptide, we see that we prevented almost 50% of the accumulation of senescent cells. So what we are inducing is our cells ability to repair the damage caused by the UV radiation. So you don't get to form the senescence cells because your cells were, you know, efficient in making sure that we repair that damage. So this is one way that our peptide works by increasing our DNA repair capacity.
So we are better prepared to fight the stress in our daily lives. And now we are studying if we can also eliminate some of the senescent cells that already formed in our tissues. We have some hypothesis that we could be inducing autophagy and other longevity pathways, but this is still going on so I will have more to share in the next months. But in a nut shell that's what our peptide does.

Claudia von Boeselager: Would you say that your product is better targeted a certain age group? Or is it really for any age groups?
Carolina Reis Oliveira: So one thing that we can clearly see in our experiments and also, you know, from our personal lives, that's easier to prevent then to reverse or to repair, right? So the earlier that we start, and of course, we don't need to start with, you know, 15, but you know, around 25. We see that after thirties, there is a huge shift in terms of protein and gene expression related to aging.
So if we can prevent that shift that, you know, it doesn't happen like, you know, overnight. So if we can start treating and protecting our skin when our skin is still healthy. That's the best time to start. Also there is one very effective product that we should use during our whole life that's sunscreen, right? It's one of the best ways that we can also prevent damage.
But in terms of something that's not only protecting against the sun damage, but also helping ourselves to a functioning property. Our product really helps in that sense. And then once you start to using the product and you see that you are getting benefits, another thing that I can say by my personal experience that's the longer you use, the better you'll see the effect.

The product works by penetrating to your skin. It's basically helping our skin to be more effective and changing the makeup of the skin from within. This takes some time, and that's why with more time you are going to see progressive effects. So if you like the product, if it works well for you, it's also something that you should use for the rest of your life, because aging is the default process. We should basically do everything that we can to, you know, keep ourselves functioning well, so we can keep the good look of our skin.
Claudia von Boeselager: To stop it in its tracks, exactly. Is it just for face or is it also for the back of the hands or for the full body, or where do you recommend using the product OS-01 that you have on the market?
Carolina Reis Oliveira: Yes. So the product is initially we are marketing it for face, neck and hands that are the areas that are more exposed, sun exposed. And usually it's where we perceive faster the signs of aging, but you can use in the whole body if you want.
We are already developing a product for the body, because again, it makes sense to treat your whole body if we're talking about longevity from a holistic point of view. So that's our next product that is coming soon this year, later this year, but definitely we, we want to treat our skin as a whole, not only parts of our skin.

Claudia von Boeselager: Okay, amazing. You talked a bit about the scientific validation and studies you've done, and you also have several patents and publications. Can you talk a bit about the validations that have been done and why this is really so revolutionary?
Carolina Reis Oliveira: Sure. So, as I said we spent almost like five years and we are still doing research and our research will never stop. This mission that now we have developed one product to promote skin rejuvenation or to fight skin aging. And our mission is to always keep improving the efficacy of that product. So we won't be launching a line of you know 10 products, but we'll be working on our one product to make it always more effective and to have the most effective product to fight skin aging in the world! So that's our mission.

Claudia von Boeselager: I love it.
 Carolina Reis Oliveira: So we spent a few years developing a platform that would replicate skin aging in the lab. Then we develop so we have a patent on this platform to test product, to See how products can affect the skin at the molecular level. Then we developed an algorithm that measures the skin biological age. We were inspired by Horvath clock that was one of the first to correlate the methylation profile with your chronological age. So use this as a system to validate the effect of a single ingredient or of a product in our skin. We are even running a technical study that people, the participants, they will be using our product for six months to one year. At the end of six months, we will collect the biopsy because we still need that piece of skin to measure this, the biological age of the skin. So we're going to collect the biopsy and we can see, we can measure in humans how much we are, you know, changing the biological age of the skin.
So this will be something very unique for, you know, this industry and this market. And we are very excited about, yeah. So we have another patent on this molecular clock because there were other clocks focusing on different issues. Horvath also developed one focused on skin and blood, but there was no clock that was specifically designed to measure skin biological age.
We know that tissue specificity really influences the accuracy of the clock. So we published a paper on that and then we also have a patent.
The third piece of our platform is the screening process and how we got to this peptide that we also have a patent on the sequencing and also its affects related to cellular senescence and other aging markers.
And we also wrote a paper that's now under review on a peer review journal, but it's also available on a preprint version at, by archives. So we want to be able to share a little bit of what we are doing so people can understand better how the product was developed and, and what's the science behind.

Claudia von Boeselager: That's so exciting and I love the fact that you're sharing also the science. Do you see that there's a trend in interest in the science behind materials?

Carolina Reis Oliveira: I, I definitely see that. I think there is a community that's already very engaged in longevity, in science. There is also the biohacking community that's you know, wants to really understand everything behind the products and technology that can help them to optimize their health. And I think the general, the mainstream consumer is also getting more and more interested in this science mainly after COVID. We needed to learn more about how our immune system works, you know, what's good for us and how we can be better prepared to fight those infections.
And people really appreciate when we bring them, you know, not only content to help educating them. But also they appreciate it when they really see that it's, you know, it's a science-based company.

Claudia von Boeselager: And I love that you have a glossary as well on the website to explain different terms and things to really help educate people as well.

Carolina Reis Oliveira: Yeah. I have even a funny story because I bought one of those kits to measure my own biological age when I went to the post office to drop this package and on the cover of the package, it was written how old are you really? There is a question. You know, how old are you really? And then the guys said, "you don't know how old you are?" They have no idea that there is chronological age and biological age... so I mean everyone knows how old they are no? You don't know how old you are?

Claudia von Boeselager: I hope you were able to educate him that you are creating new ages for skin. Amazing. I love it. That's funny. What other key trends are you seeing in the longevity space in general especially sitting there in San Francisco? And where do you think we'll all be in two to five years time.
Carolina Reis Oliveira: So one interesting trend that I have seen, and I think it's very positive, it's more companies bridging the science to consumers. So I've seen more and more companies around supplements, really bringing the, you know, connecting the dots of this science to specific ingredients that can help target the underlying cause of aging. So this is very positive. I think we need more and more companies that are really science backed.
Another thing that I've seen, companies that help you to quantify your current state of health, right? So not only your biological age as we were talking, but also know your levels of inflammation, and other markers that can help you to really understand what's going on inside.
I think this trend that we will be owning our data and watching our data closer. This will definitely help us to prevent disease to make interventions earlier. So I definitely think this is a positive change.
And another change that I see coming the future is the development of more preventative therapies. So right now, unfortunately FDA still only approves to target that specific disease. But I see that in the future, there will be a push for us to develop therapies that we will start taking after thirties, forties when we are still in good health. So we don't need to get to our sixties and seventies with several detrimental diseases. So. Yeah, I think everything that we are seeing this science in terms of understanding better and in terms of, you know, finding ways to apply that science in a way that's safe to our consumers, to our patients. I think this will definitely have a huge impact in our health.

Claudia von Boeselager: And I find it so exciting - I had another podcast interview, I don't know if you've come across him, Dr. Dale Bredesen, who with his team at Apollo Health have come up with a protocol for reversing cognitive decline. My mother is actually on his Recode program. I really like the way he formulated it, you know, he's a trained doctor in the US and it was all about the diagnosis: what does somebody have? Okay, we give the prescription.
And 21st century medicine is all about actually getting to the cause. What is the driver behind it? And actually addressing the cause, which is completely what you're also doing at OneSkin of analyzing the tissues and what's happening there and supporting then the rejuvenation with the peptide right? And I think it's so exciting to see this really seismic shift that's starting to take place through science, through work that you're doing and Dr. Bredesen, and other's in this space to bring awareness to the data-driven-ness as well to prevent so many diseases from, you know, Alzheimer's, cognitive decline, Type Two Diabetes. Dr. Jason Fung is getting patients off type two diabetes medication in a few months. All the suffering is becoming so unnecessary, which is just so exciting. So yeah, I'm, this is why I have the podcast to talk about these exciting topics.

Carolina Reis Oliveira: For sure. And I think this is so important to know, to get this word out to more people, because at the moment that we are aware that we can do things about that, there are options, there are products and technology that can help you to understand what's going on in your body and how, you know, we can intervene earlier.
We will be allowing everyone, you know, to not get to that state of health decline. And that's why I'm also very, you know, optimistic about the future, because I think in the future, this will only grow and will have more and more options to help us to get there.

Claudia von Boeselager: Exactly so that we can be dancing on the tables, right? And enjoying life! And not suffering. So I'm excited about it too! Carolina, how has an apparent failure set you up later for success? Do you have maybe any favorite failures?

Carolina Reis Oliveira: I think, well, I think the fact that the company was not doing so well in Brazil was one failure that allowed us to search for new ways to keep the dream alive, to keep the company alive. So at the moment that we saw, you know, Oh, there is an accelerator that focus on biotech and they help scientists to become entrepreneurs and it is in Silicon Valley. Everything like made so much sense because I realized that we would find, you know, the right help and, you know, the right ecosystem to, to make it happen.
And of course, during this process of developing the company, there were a lot of ups and downs. At some presentations that I was doing, I got some very harsh feedback that you know, could really you know, put me down. But at the same time, every time that someone gave me a harsh feedback or they were not believing in what I was doing, that worked to me as a fuel to, you know, to show that I can do better. My goal was not like to prove you're wrong, but I can show that I can definitely overcome that. So to me, anytime that someone, you know, didn't believe in what we were doing in our company, that didn't affect me personally in terms of, you know, I don't feel that I'm not good enough, but I'm going to keep doing my best. And eventually I know that this has prepared me for the tough times that will come in this journey. There is no, I don't think there is, there won't be like an easy path, but I will be better prepared to deal with those situations because of, you know, the challenge that I have faced so far.

So the first year that I came here to the US was definitely the hardest and the toughest and the most challenging one. And I remember that by the end of that year, I really acknowledge all the challenge and everyone that made my life harder because they made me a better and stronger person, so.

Claudia von Boeselager: Amazing. It's so good to share that as well, because I think, you know, some people are scared to go into entrepreneurship. They're going to be challenges with this, that, and the other. And I think, as you said yourself, it's the mental mindset to say, you know what, I'm not going to take it personally. It's good to be challenged. And actually, I think otherwise, so I'm going to go and prove that. So that's amazing. And that was only in one year, so well done for having that whole journey.
Carolina Reis Oliveira: Yeah and that was the hardest year, and then of course the following years we have, of course some good and tough moments as it is the entrepreneur journey.

Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah, exactly. The ups and downs. But you're still smiling, so that's a good sign. Carolina, what's been your most exciting purchase in the last six months.

Carolina Reis Oliveira: Last six months exciting purchase... Well, yeah, because I want to be a little bit more aware of what's going on in my body. So I wanna make sure that I can measure my biological age and I can measure some interventions. So I think this biological age kits, they, they exciting because I'm learning more about myself. Last year I tried the GlycanAge , have you heard about GlycanAge?

Claudia von Boeselager: Is that the continuous glucose monitor or which one is it exactly?

Carolina Reis Oliveira: The GlycanAge is the way that you can measure your biological age. Basically glycans that binds to our IgGs. So it's related to your immune system health. It's also founded by a company that's in UK. It's called GlycanAge.

Claudia von Boeselager: GlycanAge, thank you for pointing it out. I'm going to check them out.

Carolina Reis Oliveira: The founder is Nicolina she's, you know, an amazing founder and women. Yeah. You should definitely talk to her.

Claudia von Boeselager: For sure. Perfect. I'm going to link it in the show notes also for all the listeners as well. Can you explain how it works?

Carolina Reis Oliveira: So, yeah, basically they measure the levels of glycans that are accumulated on your IgGs. So it's related to the health of your immune system. Because with aging we tend to have more IgGs with Glycan so they can make this correlation. That's a different marker to measure your biological age. And it reflects more your, I would say your current state of inflammation. So a lot of things that we can do can affect on inflammation very easily. I believe that this is a better marker. While methylation takes a little longer to really change, you know, even if you change something on your, I would say on your daily habits it will take more time to reflect on your levels of methylation.
So I had the opportunity to try GlycanAge and now I bought another one that's more based on methylation. So I like it to be able to track, you know, to understand a little bit more about my health so I can make some interventions and measure this in, you know, in a few months to see if I'm getting younger. So my goal is always to you know go biologically younger..

Claudia von Boeselager: You're going to be like, what was it? The Interesting Case of Benjamin Button...

Carolina Reis Oliveira: I don't think I can go that further, but...

Claudia von Boeselager: One thing I actually tried recently is from Level's Health. Have you heard of them?

Carolina Reis Oliveira: No.

Claudia von Boeselager: So they're in Silicon Valley as well, and they use the continuous glucose monitor, which you wear to actually check daily your metabolic score. So they have a really excellent interface on the app. I've tested it as well. It's so interesting because it's totally customized, right? So it's my glycemic and my, my insulin response to sweet potato soup might be completely different to the next person. So I'm thinking it's really great for me, but actually, no, my insulin is just peaking on it and you get a daily metabolic score, and you see each food and you can compare different foods. It's really, really cool. So..
Carolina Reis Oliveira: I love that. I think this should be my next acquisition because that's also something that I want to track is know how my insulin levels are responding to different type of foods.

Claudia von Boeselager: You have to check it out - Levels Health. It's really great. Carolina, do you have a favorite quote or piece of advice received that was a real game changer for you?
Carolina Reis Oliveira: Yes, I have this quote it's from, I think I need to check the quote but it's from Rocky Balboa, it's not about how hard life hits you, but how much are you able to being hit and still get up and keep fighting? You know? So, yeah, so you can probably read...

Claudia von Boeselager: I found it here exactly. I'll read it for you. So and I've heard it before. I wouldn't remember it either, but I love it. "So you, me or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life, but it ain't about how hard you hit it's about how hard you get hit and keep moving forward." So exactly, it's rolling with the punches, as they say, and picking yourself up again, dusting yourself off and continuing. So I, I love that that's really great.
Carolina to finish up with a few points. Are there any books or resources you can recommend for people looking to better understand skin longevity and skin health?

Carolina Reis Oliveira: Yeah, unfortunately we don't have a book specifically on skin longevity. For longevity in general, I recommended LIFESPAN from David Sinclair. It can be very technical, but you can skip some parts if you are not into the weeds. but I think it's a great book and also brings a very, I would say optimistic view of what the future holds for us. And for skin health, I would suggest to read our blog posts, to follow us on social media or on our website. We really love sharing a lot of content that will help educating people in terms of what they can do to improve their skin health. And also subscribe to our mailing list because on our emails, we also share a lot of content.

Claudia von Boeselager: Perfect. So for people interested, could you say exactly the website, your web domain and your social media handles?

Carolina Reis Oliveira: Yes. So our website is ONESKIN.CO. And our Instagram is also @OneSkin.co and our LinkedIn probably is only OneSkin or maybe OneSkin Technologies.

Claudia von Boeselager: But we'll find you under OneSkin. Exactly. Carolina, do you have any parting thoughts or message for my audience?

Carolina Reis Oliveira: I think my main message is that yeah, we are the owners of our destiny and the, the choices that we make today will really determine how we are going to age. So we have the freedom. We have the ability to educate ourselves, to make the right choices today. We shouldn't be waiting for the magic pill. and this is life! It's fun to go to some efforts and to exercise and build your muscles, build your strengths and to cook your own food, then, you know, to really be aware of the things that you are putting in your body. And of course, you know, cultivate good thoughts and try to manage the stress. All of those small decisions, they will build up and they will pay off in the future. And with more products and technologies that are coming to help us, this will really allow us to build the future that we are all enjoying life as we grow older or grow younger, right?

Claudia von Boeselager: I love it. Wonderful words, Carolina. Thank you so much for joining today. It's been such a pleasure.

Carolina Reis Oliveira: Thank you, Claudia. I really enjoyed our conversation.


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