Testing the Safety and Efficacy of Wound and Skin Cleansers: A Dual Approach at Emery Pharma

Hello, my name is Dmitry Debabov. I am director of Microbiology and Cell biology at Emeryville Pharmaceutical Services. Today I'll talk about testing cytotoxicity and antimicrobial activity of wound and skin care products. Chronic wounds such as venous ulcers and diabetic ulcers are important unmet medical need. It is important to control bacterial infection in these wounds because bacteria cause inflammation and delay wound healing. Recently there have been a lot of interest in biofilms in wounds. In addition, human cells such as fibroblasts and keratinocytes play important role in wound healing. Ideal wound care product should kill bacteria in the wounds without inhibiting growth of human cells. To test these properties, we have a number of assays at Emeryville Pharmaceutical Services. Recently we tested several wound and skin care products for cytotoxicity against L929 fibroblast. We used a 96 well plate assay to test activity of these products. After we found what concentrations of the products are safe to human cells, we tested antimicrobial activity of these products against methicillin resistant Staph aureus or Mrs. We used a time kill assay where we test what concentration of the product kills 99.9% of bacteria. If you are interested in our methods of antimicrobial testing, Cytotac 60 testing and biofilm models, please call Emeryville pharmaceutical services at 510-899-8814. My name is Dmitry. Thank you for listening.