OSA Journal addresses zinc oxide nanoparticles in sunscreen.

Press Release Summary:



November 2011 issue of Optical Society's open-access journal, Biomedical Optics Express, covers research done by scientists using laser imaging to assess safety of zinc oxide nanoparticles in sunscreen. Team of scientists from Australia and Switzerland developed a way to optically test concentration of ZnO nanoparticles at different skin depths. According to research results, nanoparticles do not penetrate beneath outermost layer of cells when applied to patches of excised skin.



Original Press Release:



Monthly Tip Sheet: Research Highlights from Biomedical Optics Express - November 2011



WASHINGTON, -The following highlights summarize key research recently published in Biomedical Optics Express, the Optical Society's (OSA) principal outlet for serving the biomedical optics community with rapid, open-access, peer-reviewed papers related to optics, photonics and imaging in the life sciences. The journal scope encompasses theoretical modeling and simulations, technology development, and biomedical studies and clinical applications.

In this issue:

Scientists Use Laser Imaging to Assess Safety of Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles in Sunscreen

Researchers' New Recipe Cooks-up Better Tissue 'Phantoms'


1. Scientists Use Laser Imaging to Assess Safety of Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles in Sunscreen

Ultra-tiny zinc oxide (ZnO) particles with dimensions less than one-ten-millionth of a meter are among the ingredients list of some commercially available sunscreen products, raising concerns about whether the particles may be absorbed beneath the outer layer of skin. To help answer these safety questions, an international team of scientists from Australia and Switzerland have developed a way to optically test the concentration of ZnO nanoparticles at different skin depths. They found that the nanoparticles did not penetrate beneath the outermost layer of cells when applied to patches of excised skin. The results, which were published this month in the Optical Society's (OSA) open-access journal Biomedical Optics Express, lay the groundwork for future studies in live patients.

The high optical absorption of ZnO nanoparticles in the UVA and UVB range, along with their transparency in the visible spectrum when mixed into lotions, makes them appealing candidates for inclusion in sunscreen cosmetics. However, the particles have been shown to be toxic to certain types of cells within the body, making it important to study the nanoparticles' fate after being applied to the skin. By characterizing the optical properties of ZnO nanoparticles, the Australian and Swiss research team found a way to quantitatively assess how far the nanoparticles might migrate into skin.

The team used a technique called nonlinear optical microscopy, which illuminates the sample with short pulses of laser light and measures a return signal. Initial results show that ZnO nanoparticles from a formulation that had been rubbed into skin patches for 5 minutes, incubated at body temperature for 8 hours, and then washed off, did not penetrate beneath the stratum corneum, or topmost layer of the skin. The new optical characterization should be a useful tool for future non-invasive in vivo studies, the researchers write.

Paper: "Characterization of optical properties of ZnO nanoparticles for quantitative imaging of transdermal transport," Biomedical Optics Express, Vol. 2, Issue 12, pp. 3321-3333 (2011).

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