Latest / The Science of Skin / Dermatologist Dr. Ellen Marmur explains how her interest in photobiomodulation lead to her to develop a novel FDA-approved LED device and complementary light activated serums

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Dermatologist Dr. Ellen Marmur explains how her interest in photobiomodulation lead to her to develop a novel FDA-approved LED device and complementary light activated serums · The Science of Skin

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Dr.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Patty Ferris.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a board certified dermatologist, and I'm your host for this episode of Skin Care Confidential.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: Just as a reminder, Skin Care Confidential was started by Dr.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Ted Lane and I.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: We're also the co-directors and the co-founders of the Science of Skin Care Summit, a medical meeting designed to teach healthcare professionals about the science behind topical skin care.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: So this episode I'm so excited about because I have a very good friend who's also an incredibly accomplished dermatologist with me, Dr.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: Ellen Marmer.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Ellen, I'm going to start by reading your bio, which is massive, so we're not going to read the whole thing.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to read the high points.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Dr.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Marmer is a global leader, without a doubt, in dermatology as well as dermatologic surgery with over 20 years of experience.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: She's the founder and CEO of Marmor Medical as well as MM Skin Care.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Her MM Sphere has been awarded as the number one best dermatologist-invented LED device.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: So exciting, Ellen.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: She's the first to conduct LED genomic research using green light to elucidate photobiomodulation and the effects of photobiomodulation on mitochondria in skin cells.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: And we're going to talk all about that today, everybody.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: So if those words are foreign to you, you're about to get educated.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: She's also a trusted award-winning cosmetic and dermatologic surgeon.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: She's a teacher, a researcher, and a professor at Mount Sinai.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: You have way too many accolades for me to go through here.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: No surprise, you are AOA.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: You've won two presidential awards from the American Academy of Dermatology.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: And she also started something called Skin Care Take a Hike, which we're going to talk about a little bit later in this episode.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: But welcome to my girlfriend Ellen Marmer.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited to have you.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Patty, it is such an honor to be on your podcast, your Intes podcast.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've already listened to your episodes and they're so great.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: So if anybody gets a chance to go back and listen and for me to be amongst your guests, I'm just so super excited.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you so much for taking the time.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: I know how busy you are running all these different businesses and doing all your research.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: So let's start like really basic.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there are so many dermatologists, Alan, as you well know, that have started skincare lines.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's so many now.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: But you're one of the few who actually developed a device.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: So what was your motivation behind that?
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: And like, how did you get into this whole LED field?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it was in the shower.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: All good ideas, don't we?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like suddenly in this one nanosecond, I had this idea of like solving this, solving the problem where there's so many skincare products out there, and you never know what's going to work, what's not going to work, what's going to hurt your skin or backfire, what ingredients are safe, you know, are they effective?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Is the science actually good or is it limited science?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do we take like clinical problems in our in our practices, the the goal of aging well with healthy, beautiful skin, and the limitations of skincare products?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, well, bingo, light goes right through the skin.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: So you can use light as an ingredient to help the skin.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: And where we can't use lasers in our houses every day, we do have low-level light therapy in the form of LED.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I think I got really lucky because LED technology was just becoming accessible, small, portable, powerful, and safe.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I was able to design my own LED with all those safety and efficacy ideas in mind with some incredible engineers.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: And now we work with like a global team to always provide the very latest and greatest and safest.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and now we have some science to prove it.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: So with a device, do you had to go through FDA approval?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, so it's not like FDA approval for you know, like a new insulin or a new neuromodulator, it's FDA clearance for a device.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: So these are medical grade devices that go through safety testing, which is a very expensive, like over six-figure kind of testing that has to be done at an outside facility with FDA approved testing labs and stuff.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: And what they're really looking for is heat.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like, does the device which hasn't a battery inside, so our device has a big battery in the handle and the light sources are in this platform, does this give off too much heat in any way to hurt skin?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: This goes to the safety of some of the LED masks that you might get that may not be FDA cleared, where they just have this very bright lights around your eyes.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you take off the mask and your eyes feel kind of like fuzzy for a second, that's probably too bright to be near your eyes, and it's giving off too much electromagnetic or electric heat and light heat for your for your body.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: So the FDA class, even the way this is painted, it has to be a particularly like a safe product that your hand can hold.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to go through all these different testing for safety, and then we went further to show clinical and, like you said, genomic efficacy.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: So talk about photobiomodulation and maybe explain to the audience what is photobiomodulation and how does that differ from laser?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so basic lasers are high-energy specific wavelengths of light.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: So you have like a red light that's 595 nanometers or something that selectively hits a target in the skin, and that's called photothermolysis.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like the photon, which is just energy, is a ball of energy, it goes into the skin, it gets absorbed by a chromophore in the skin.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, the red blood cell, and that heats it up, so it converts from light to heat, and then it causes selective damage, so it blows it up.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: So selective photothermolysis is what lasers are based on.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: With low-level light therapy, the opposite of lasers, which are high intensity, it's tiny little bits of photon light.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a specific wavelength, it's sort of a spectrum of wavelengths.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: So you might range around, you know, blue light might range around a particular set of spectrum, red light a little bit of a range.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then you're tickling all these little acceptors.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: They're called photoacceptors in the skin.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: And where might they be?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: You have photoacceptors all throughout the epidermis and the dermis.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I will come back to that because I find it fascinating that our eyes and our skin are the only two organs that use visible light spectrum, right?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: We're all photodynamic.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you have your photon coming in with your low-level light therapy, it's found its little acceptor, it's creating a photochemical reaction.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that energy needs to convert from light to something.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: In lasers, it's light to heat.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: In photobiomodulation, using photons to biologically change something in the skin, it's usually a photochemical reaction.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that happens in this little part of the cytoplasm of a cell.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: So swimming around every cell is something called a mitochondria.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And if people remember from high school, the mitochondria is where our energy is made to help fuel the cell and get us to do get the cell to make proteins.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: So that photobiomodulation hits the mitochondria, creates ATP, which is now a new form of energy, and that tells your cells to make more proteins to kind of repair and replenish and you know change something in the skin.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: So that is breaking down photobiomodulation.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: So it's all about the acceptors, and those acceptors are all in the mitochondria.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: They're not all in the mitochondria, actually.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: So different color lights have different photoacceptors and different things.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's my next question.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: So let's go, let's go there because your LED device has six different colors in it, and so I know they each have different photoacceptors.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: So the LED, our LED has um the full range, unlike some others.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got amber light, um, you've got green light, you've got purple, you've got red, you can't really see it, and then you've got blue light.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: So we know I could go through, there's probably like 10 different photo acceptors for every light, and many are not yet well described.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: So just to keep it simple, let's use the mitochondria.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: In the mitochondria, if you think about bumper cars, there's five bumper cars in the mitochondria.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so as light comes in, this electron transport chain kind of is like one bumper car hits another bumper car, hits another, hits another.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's called redox reactions.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: So reduction and oxidation reactions.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so within those five different complexes, green light hits one particular complex, red light hits another complex, amber light hits another complex.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: Blue light, we know in dermatology, kills some of the acne bacteria on the surface of the skin through the porphyrins.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then it also hits some other photoacceptors in the cells to up and down regulate inflammation.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: But I can speak more specifically about green light if that's something you want to go to.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, do.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: So when I was coming out with our science, you know, science is very expensive, and I was like, okay, so NASA has studied red light for growth, um, photosynthesis, it still uses mitochondria, it still uses all the ATP.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Blue light has been studied in skin cancers, it reduces actinokeratoses, and it reduces the acne bacteria.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Amber light has been studied in psychiatric stuff.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: It helps with mood changes, it helps with seasonal affective disorder.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's thought to release endorphins, and that gives your body a rush and helps your circulation and your sympathetic nervous system.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: So we noticed that amberlite helps make the skin a little bit more plump and moist, which is actually interesting for people who have eczema and dry skin.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: But green light had didn't have really have any literature other than psychology literature, where it's like green light makes you more energetic and positive.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: So we said, let's do a super scientific study as if we were a pharmaceutical company, because let's not care about like the limitations of cosmosceutical science, let's do some real science.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we took the green light and we did a split face study.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's called a pilot study.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: We used green light on only half the face.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: So in front of my other ear, there's no way the green light is hitting that.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we used it for 20 minutes every day for six weeks.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then after the treatment, we had done before the treatment, we did baseline biopsy or baseline photoanalysis using the Vizia AI system.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Did the green light for six weeks, and then did four millimeter punch biopsies in front of each ear.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: So in sun-damaged skin, one side was eliminated, the other side wasn't.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: We sent it off to the translational medicine lab at Cornell and Rockefeller University here.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then the same lab with James Kruger, Dr.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Kruger, who did all this science for psoriasis and for a lot of eczema, he put it through the same way that they learned about how the molecules and interleukins and all that stuff work in those in those real diseases.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: And we were able to use his statistician was able to look at how do you compare each person, treated and untreated, and then how do you compare the whole cohort of people.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we found many different entire molecular pathways that were changed.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: So now in science, you don't get like 31,000 genes that have been changed.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: You get in you get how those genes work together in these canonical molecular pathways.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: So there are libraries of known pathways now, and so that helps us understand the clinical relevance to some of these genomic alterations.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: So they found that green light upregulates two things and downregulates three things that are many times statistically significant.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: One thing, green light hits the retino, the RXR pathway, so the retinoic acid pathway and upregulates the retinolic acid pathway in the skin so that we know that normalizes the skin barrier.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's crazy, right?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: You don't know.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Especially now that retinols or retinolic acid has been banned in the EU.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: It has to be a super low concentration.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Concentrations, yeah.03, right?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Or it has to be a prescription only.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um and same in the UK, I think in um maybe even Canada.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that's supposed to be coming here too.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll start seeing changes in some of the you know, you know this story better than anyone.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: So interesting though.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: With how green light affects the R the RXR receptor.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: The RXR pathway receptor, yeah.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: So that's amazing.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: The second shocking thing was that it caused browning of white fat.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And at the recent meeting we were both at this whole regenerative medicine story is very interesting, but browning of white fat has become really interesting in the dermatology world.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that means that when you're born, you're born with high energy fat.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then as we get older, that fat goes from from white to tan, it goes from brown to tan to white, and that implicates that we're losing mitochondria.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we're losing mitochondria, and then the fat becomes more white.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: To get your fat to be more energizing and energetic, again, as a kind of like a battery storage for your skin and face and tissue around it, you want browning of white fat.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: So the green light increased the browning of white fat.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Crazy, also amazing.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that just means you have more ATP around to help those molecular pathways we were talking about.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: The things that it downregulated were three major forms of inflammation that have been implicated in loss of collagen and also have been implicated in eczema and psoriasis.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: So the IL-17, TH17, and the it's called crosstalk between T cells.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: So these are really fascinating things that we would have never thought of.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like, of course, we knew that maybe the collagen pathway would be upregulated, but we didn't really know how.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: And now we have, you know, this pilot study with just excellent science, and it just opens up so many more questions.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, fine, so we're all obsessed with red light now for anti-aging, but green light, like can we now pair this with topical pharmaceuticals or other ingredients and actually augment what we're treating at home?
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Can we help kids with eczema or people who have other skin diseases just by using low-level light therapy?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's so interesting.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: You must have been surprised at those results.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: I remember exactly where I was sitting when we had that do call, and I was like, this is amazing.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Aha moment.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: And when you do an exploratory study, you just can't expect anything.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: So this was beyond our expectations.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's super exciting.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: So you touched a little bit on red light, and I think most people know red light more than anything because there's so many red light masks out there, but you said something interesting earlier, like some of these red light masks have not gone through approval.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you have to be careful about the red light masks and and their approval.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, how do you know if they've been approved or not?
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: You should be able to actually look it up.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: It should be a very easy thing to do.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: On their website, it should yes, and even on the government website, the FDA has um, you know, listing of all the 510Ks it's given, and you should be able to find out if it's uh if it's update cleared.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: I do believe that you need to trust the company for sure, and you need to sort of look at who made it and what was their intention.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: So there are only a few LED devices that are made by dermatologists, and I definitely think that is important in this.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: There are some LED devices that are made by nutritionists or or not even, and you know, you're kind of wondering, like, well, how do you understand photodynamic therapy?
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: And how do you understand photobiomodulation?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: So um, I also think that when you when you're looking at red light, well, okay, so people like red light because they think it reduces inflammation and they think it reduces pain, which I do think it does, but be careful that the red light does not also have infrared light with it.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because infrared light can go a little deeper and it's actually been shown to cause reduction in fat.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, not necessarily girth, and but it can cause reduction in fat.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: I have one patient who has a red light um sleeping bag kind of thing, and she was in it for two hours a day, and now her skin is all wrinkled because she lost some of that.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: She lost the fatal fat layer.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: I know I've seen that reported, and I looked at some of the studies not that long ago.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, some of them were okay, some of them were not such great studies, but I could never get my arms around whether I thought it was really worth doing.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, for for what you for fat, for fat.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think that, yeah, so there are some um there are some medical grade red light waistbands that have been shown to reduce girth by two centimeters.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's also awesome uses of red light, transcranial red light can help with Alzheimer's disease.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: It works on the formaldehyzation of the neurons or something.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that's something that's really cool.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Back to dermatology, um, red light is thought to extend the antigen phase of the hair.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I do believe Roxanderson's lab is working on blue light for that same um endpoint, which is prolongation of the of the growth phase of the hair follicles and potentially allowing for accumulation of more dense hair growth.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, which is such a huge market right now.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: So you not only develop the device, but then you put a skincare line together to go with it.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: So that we have to talk about like what was how did you get there, and then what's in the skincare line, and how does it all marry together with protobiomodulation?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that was part of that nanosecond aha shower moment.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: But so in our offices, we use full we use blue light to activate amino levelonic acid.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: So photodynamic therapy, right?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: We let the medicine like saturate or marinate into the skin.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it converts to another medicine, and then you activate it with the blue light, and it blows up the precancers and also the acne bacteria.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was that was another thing I was thinking of like, well, why can't we just utilize the organ of the skin to have meaningful serums with meaningful ingredients that are photodynamic, and we can power those serums with different forms of red light?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because you know, some days you wake up and you've got a breakout, and some days you wake up and you look great, and some days you wake up and you have you know brown spots.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: So you want to be able to change your skincare, like tunable skincare.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do you change it for you every day instead of getting stuck into something that doesn't quite work for you anymore?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: So that flexibility is something you can get with different color lights, and so I wanted to take the best that we know, like in one serum, have the peptides and the antioxidants, but also have photodynamics and adaptogens.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so the photodynamics are called photosomes, and these are mainly enzymes that can be in the product that are activated by the light and can help reduce cortisol levels in the skin, helps you know improve the collagen in the skin.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Depending on which light you use, you can have different um different endpoints.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I really thought, okay, in terms of sustainability, we can use less products, so you don't have to have 10 different vials of products on your on your bedstand.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: You can have one mainly that will do all those things: peptides, antioxidants, adaptogens, and photodynamics.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you can use your light and you can change it up based on how your skin is that day.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you can do it really, really fast.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because at the time I was raising four kids and running two businesses, and I was like, there is no way I have time to do anything complicated.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I just wanted to make it really, really easy.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: So now we have we actually have a patent on photodynamic skincare.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: We just had an article published in May 2024 in the JDD talking about photodynamic skincare, and we have many presentations on the genomic analysis using the LED light on skin.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, what molecules or what actives do you put in?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: What are the photodynamic actives?
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned some of the ones that we know of, but what what what are those?
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm not familiar.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Photosomes is the name of it.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: So photosome 5 is the name of this group of photodynamic products that we worked with, a uh organic chemist here in New York City, and also with a lab in South Korea, and we let them know that we wanted something that was sustainable, safe, and photodynamic.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: So is that a like a liposome?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, is it a it sounds to me like a delivery of those molecules, a photosome, no?
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: Are there more than one ingredient in a photosome?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: No, yeah, it's five.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's a it's a complex of five different ingredients.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't believe I don't think it's like an a coded kind of slow release thing.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's a photon activated molecule.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: So photosome, photon activated.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: And also there's a type of plankton, like a blue green algae that is um light activated, and that's light activated by all forms of visible light.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that helps with the hydration of the skin.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you You know you know so much about cosmoceuticals.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody knows more than Patty.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: But I've written a chapter on marine-based ingredients, so I'm interested in the the blue-green algae.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's been a long time, but it's so fascinating to me.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's also something called night blooming cucumber that is so we also wanted things that would work with a parasympathetic nervous system, and that would be more something like a like a night activated um natural ingredient.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: And this also is something that is sort of the opposite of having light activated is actually the opposite of light activated.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: So night, night blooming cucumbers and the repose serums for nighttime to help reduce the oxidation of the day and help with the sympathetic, parasympathetic nervous system and all of that activity in the skin.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: So do different colors of lights do different things to the photosome?
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, so the green light activates the green photosome in the revive serum.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: So this the box of the serum has a green circle on it to help you know that it's green.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: That it goes with the green light?
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it makes again very easy.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Love it, genius.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the circle on the box is the same shape as this.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like, yes, this is it's all about subconscious quick thinking.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then the red light is it the repose activation, and the blue light is the balance activation.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because the other thing that we really love about the balance serum is that um I think the wild indigo and um I'll tell you the other ingredient in a moment.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: But yes, there's different ingredients, Canadian willow herb, that also help with acne and sort of like the blemishes that are left over.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: And we've noticed that when you use the blue light with the balance serum, you also decrease the sea bone activity.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: So you're able to for about you know 12 hours reduce the oil of the skin.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure people love that.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it mattifies the skin.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what's giving you the customization.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, depending on what your problem is, and you can change that whenever you want to using another serum and a different color light.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's so cool.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: It is so cool.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: You can kind of have your three things, you know how to use it.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: You can use the serums independently, or you can use the light.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'd say that most people have the light on their desk by their computer.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: It is uh rechargeable here on this little interview.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: You'd be proud of me.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Mine's sitting right over there.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, Patty.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: I had so much fun.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: You should just turn it on.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Take all your reach dolls with like a different color face, you know.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: People think you're a little bit uh an alien when you're doing green.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: But really, it the 20 minutes goes by so fast, and then you can kind of like have it on one side if you really want to, or you can have it in front of your keyboard.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Some people put it up on top of their computer, you know, so it's like grabbing onto the screen.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: But again, this has a lens over the light so that you actually don't really need to wear goggles.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're not supposed to be staring at the light, you're supposed to be looking at something.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: So you can put a peripheral or something so you're not looking directly at it.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: Talk to me about your masks because I know you have some really cool masks as well.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so the masks are made in South Korea, where most of the best kind of hydrogel masks are made.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: They have something called a triple matrix technology.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you think about in the old days, most of us remember making jello.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it came powdered ingredients in a box, you put it in a bowl, and you put boiling water and you mixed all the ingredients.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then it went when it congealed, you had all the ingredients homogenously in that jello.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: Same thing here.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: The active ingredients that are in the serums are the same ingredients inside this hydrogel mask, and the triple matrix is sort of holding them in place.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of other masks, which I found very sloppy, where you're opening a packet and you're pulling something out and it's dripping, you're kind of losing a lot of that active ingredient in that, you know, the liquid.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: So this is all packed into the hydrogel mask.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it comes out, you know, fairly it's a moist mask, but it's not wet.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it's double, it has like two little paper layers to kind of keep in that humidity.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you put it on your skin and you can sort of press it onto the skin, and then you can activate the mask with the light.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: So same thing now that it's said that ingredients and masks, if they're pressed co well, are 300% more effective than when they're just put on topically in a serum.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what I wanted for people to do like once a week, use their mask.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Again, you can have one of each kind.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're breaking out, you can use the balance mask.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you're oily, you can use the balance mask.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: We even have people using the blue light for a ton of sun damage, like actinakeratosis.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: And although this is just a few patients, it actually reduces the burden of their AKs.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I think that the blue light, if we did studies like we did with the green light, it may be that it's working on that RXR pathway somehow and helping regulate the the keratinocytes.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: So interesting.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: So there's so much, yeah, so much science behind the way you married everything.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's really it's just so fascinating.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it makes sense.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that um, you know, our skin is so dynamic.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: I called the product line Marmor Metamorphosis, metamorphosis because I think, you know, in our days cosmosceuticals became such the rage, but I think they got a little out of control and they lost some of the truth about the physiology of skin.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that skin is a living organ, it's your best, largest living organ.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: And because it's a living organ, it already has so many mechanisms in it that know what to do.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: You just need to harness them a little bit better.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't need to scrub your skin, you don't need to put acid on and cause redness.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like a lot of the stuff that was coming out when you and I were coming up into dermatology was a little off-base.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: A little out there at that point.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's so true.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where the whole regenerative medicine or regenerative dermatology is heading is it's harnessing your own skin's healing and anti-aging uh properties.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the skin is in phenomenal order.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: It is so phenomenal.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: And and something I think we're gonna learn more about is that the circulation called interstitial fluid is, you know, you think of circulation as lymphatics, or you think of circulation as red blood cells or you know, arteries and veins, but this interstitial fluid is like this chicken soup of the skin, and it's in all the soft tissue, and it's got this immunoinflammatory cells that are just coursing around the body, communicating to the whole body.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's really a way of thinking about the health of your skin, contributes to the health of your whole body, and vice versa.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so how do we use the skin?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Just like vitamin D, like pre-vitamin D circulates up to the top of the skin, UV comes, it activates your vitamin D, it goes back into your bones, it makes you healthier.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like, can we learn more about the interstitial fluid and that immunosinflammatory mixture and use different LED colors or you know, visible light colors to help improve the health of the skin as well, or the body as well.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: So interesting.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: So, of course, we're gabbing away and we're getting close to the end, but I want you to talk for a few minutes about skincare take a hike because it's I know you've been awarded by the American Academy of Dermatology a volunteer award, and it's such a great program.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: So tell everybody about it, and and I'll remind you guys that Ellen's a MOA surgeon, so she probably spends the majority of her day taking skin cancer out of people.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I realized that I was not nearly smart enough in this lifetime to ever come up with a cure for cancer.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I thought maybe what I could do is help spread the message about how to prevent skin cancer.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I had three skin cancers on my face, two big ones on my nose, and one under my eye, and another one on my knee, mainly because I was an outdoor athlete, but also because I did all the dumb things.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was I did suntating parlors and I did competitions, like who could get more dark tan?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I always lost.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you I could actually win, which was even worse because that was a positive reward.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm so brown.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: Let me lay out some more.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: More tan.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: I've had a basal cell and Mo surgery myself.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, and it's just a lot of fun.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: So you're like, okay, some of us, you know, they're showing now genetically, some of us are actually genetically more prone to these things.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought skin cancer take a hike.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm not gonna live in a in a cave the rest of my life.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: I want to go out, I want to live my life to the maximum, but I gotta do it in a smart way.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: And let's go raise some money to spread awareness and spread education.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: So skin cancer take a hike started 10 years ago.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we climbed Mount Kilimanjaro because Africa just like spoke to me, and it was insane and amazing.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and since then we've raised, I think, over like$2.4 million for the AAD, and that has provided thousands of skin cancer screenings, and they believe it's saved over 5,000 melanomas.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so I just think a step at a time.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: So anyone who ever wants to come on a hike or start their own hike, it's a grassroots kind of thing, and it's so fun to do.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, even if people contribute$25, it all goes to a really good cause.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm really proud of it.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: So as long as I can hike, we'll be doing skin cancer taking.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say, I'm intimidated by your hikes.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: You guys are like hiking, serious hiking.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we okay, Keely was intimidating in Iceland, Patagonia.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: Iceland.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: But this year is gonna be in um, it's only three days, it's 31 miles, and it's gonna be in Banff.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: So beautiful.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: We can make some easy ones, Patty.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: If you I was gonna say, I mean, can't we like hike in the vineyards in France or something?
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: Something super easy.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody goes.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody trains for it.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's serious, but yeah, let we'll give that some thought offline where we can go.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: That won't be so rigorous.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: The thing about hiking is that it's just using your body, and we were built to walk, right?
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like we we need to keep our bodies moving as we get older, right?
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and um I do a lot of walking, honestly.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's my exercise.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: I can't run anymore, so I I miss running, but walking is so great.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna let you go because I've already kept you longer than I promised I would, but I want to thank you so much.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: And if you could tell our audience, where do you find the sphere and the skincare line?
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: What is your website?
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so mmskincare.com is where you'll find more information.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: You'll find a way to take a little quiz and you'll find sort of like a video of each different light and what it does, so you can sort of learn a lot more.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: But the good news is that it's all in one.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to pick and choose because it comes with all the different colors, and that we're really proud of that.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: We're so proud of our published research and of our ability to make like a tiny little contribution in the pioneering aspect of LED.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't wait to collaborate with other scientists who are obsessed with LED and see, you know, just how far we can take it.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's really that science has just gone through the roof.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: I remember when the first device came up, we were all like, huh?
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: Now everybody's talking about it.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for sharing your expertise and all the great work you've done.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm so proud of you.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: You're just so so you know, you're such a trailblazer and a pioneer in our specialty.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you and have a wonderful day.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks everybody for listening.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: And we'll see you next time.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: Bye bye.