12 hours ago
- Health
- South China Morning Post
Peptide alchemy: here's how fish-cell biotech transforms skincare
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In a sterile, closed vessel at Avant's Singapore production facility, a vial containing just milligrams of fish cells sparks a carefully controlled cultivation process. Within weeks, those cells multiply into kilograms of biomass.
After harvesting and washing, the team uses a non-chemical lysis method to break open the cells and retrieve every molecule inside.
'Some asked, 'Why not just source fish collagen from an established supplier?' Collagen is only one protein; it's primarily a structural protein rather than a signalling protein,' says Carrie Chan, CEO of Avant.
'Collagen acts like the scaffold of a building, but it can't call in the repair crews; by contrast, the peptides in ZelluGEN™ each play messenger roles, telling skin cells to ramp up collagen, build and align collagen fibrils and heal damage,' she explains with a simple analogy.
Among them is Fibulin, for example, a peptide that guides elastic-fibre formation and decreases sharply as skin ages. ZelluGEN™ replenishes Fibulin, along with hundreds of other peptides, all at once, she explains further.
'Our skin cells produce less Fibulin as we age and after UV damage, so replenishing collagen or just one or two peptides may have only a limited effect. Nature produces exactly what is needed. Each protein is unique and essential.'
