More about Peptides

Excerpt form Article in Medesthetics Magazine, May 2009
http://medesthetics.epubxpress.com/

Peptides Promise New Breakthroughs in Skin Care

A mere 20 amino acids form the basic building blocks to hundreds of thousands of possible combinations of peptide chains. Yet within the test tubes being filled and assayed every day with these thousands upon thousands of combinations of amino acid chains, just one link could very well hold the answer to a significant breakthrough in reversing the grip of aging on skin.
The combinations of these tiny synthetic amino acid chains are often random, and the time it takes to evaluate the countless permutations can require years. Furthermore, scientists are tasked with the challenge to find the shortest chain possible for penetration.

But by sending messages and unlocking the code to a variety of processes in our skin, a small dose of a peptide can have a potentially huge impact on our skin’s biological activity without the potential irritation that we find with other actives.
“It’s a little like Name That Tune,” says John E. Kulesza, president of Young Pharmaceuticals, Wethersfield, CT (www.youngpharm.com). “The object is to name the tune in as few notes as possible. With peptides, the objective becomes how can we tell a fibroblast, for instance, to make a protein in as few notes, or amino acids, as possible.”

MATRIXYL BREAKS GROUND IN COLLAGEN STIMULATION
Although we’ve known about peptides for years, scientists only started researching them about 50 years ago and, it wasn’t until the last 10 years that the cosmetics industry began to focus on these tiny building blocks of protein.
Today, pharmaceutical and cosmetic manufacturers alike are studying peptides for the wide range of promising applications offered by these cell messengers.