SBIR Phase I: Building the sunscreen of the future

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to develop and analytically validate a new, bio-inspired material as an alternative ultraviolet (UV)-filter that would fill an immediate societal and environmental need, which is to minimize the impacts of solar radiation without posing a risk to human health or the marine ecosystem. This is important, as existing commercial sunscreens suffer from five significant problems: (1) A large proportion of marketed sunscreens are ineffective at protecting skin from UV radiation. (2) Over 65% of non-mineral sunscreens contain chemicals that are toxic to marine ecosystems (i.e., ocean’s coral reefs). (3) Many common, conventional sunscreen chemicals may not even be human-safe and are currently being re-evaluated by regulatory bodies. (4) There is poor adoption of the safer, mineral-based sunscreens due to their negative aesthetic properties including a thick, white coating on the skin. (5) Early evidence indicates growing concerns that newer micro- and nano-based formulations of mineral sunscreens, which are visually more appealing, also have toxic impacts on both skin and the environment. The proposed technology innovation is aimed at replacing those currently in use as a safer, ecofriendly, and more effective alternative. The proposed project will overcome three technical hurdles involved in bringing a new ingredient into the suncare market. The first is aimed at simplifying the chemistry of the core class of molecules proposed in this work to ultimately reduce the production costs of the raw material to a market viable rate. The second will be to assess their utility and effectiveness in formulations at a range of sun protection factors. In addition to their UV-filtering performance, the photo- and thermal- stabilities of the formulations will be evaluated. The third is to investigate the safety of the proposed materials in formulations including cytocompatibility and anti-microbial assays. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.