Acne research targets spots

Acne, the scourge of teenagers everywhere, is to be the subject of research by a team at Bradford.

Professor Anthony Thody, the newly appointed Professor of Experimental Dermatology in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, hopes to pinpoint what it is that stimulates the sebaceous glands and results in the dreaded outbreak of spots.

"Everyone can get a touch of acne - in fact dermatologists say you are abnormal if you don't get it. The big problem is that some unfortunate individuals are severely affected," he said. The complaint commonly occurs during adolescence and tends to disappear as the sufferer gets older. "Sebaceous gland activity increases at puberty and then levels off as we get older," said Professor Thody. "A lot of research has already been carried out into the role of androgens on the sebaceous glands but we are interested in seeing whether there are other factors at work."

He said there was no hard evidence to show that diet - or eating chocolate - was to blame but that stress could be a factor. "There are really no good treatments for acne," said Professor Thody. Retinoids - the vitamin A derived compounds which switch off thesebaceous glands - are effective in severe cases but they have received quite a lot of bad publicity recently.

"Otherwise, cleansers and creams might have some use because they help to keep the skin clean but they do not get to the root of theproblem." He is hoping to attract funding to carry out research which will concentrate on factors regulating sebaceous gland activity. "If we identify these factors then this could lead to the development of new drugs to treat the problem."

Professor Thody also plans to continue his research into skin pigmentation, looking particularly at why some people tan easily and others do not. While at his previous post at the University of Newcastle, he found that the melanocytes - cells which produce pigment - are different in people who tan easily and those who don't.

Dark haired people who tan easily tend to produce more eumelanin - black pigments - while red haired people who don't tan tend to have more phaeomelanin - red pigments. "We don't really know the reasons for this and we now need to understand how these melanocytes differ and what the significance of this is."

Professor Thody and his team will also be continuing work on vitiligo - a disease where pigment is reduced leaving white patches on the skin - and melasma - where the opposite happens and too much pigment is produced, causing dark patches to appear.

Professor Thody will be collaborating with colleagues at Bradford, including Professors Karin Schallreuter and John Wood, Dr Val Randall, Dr Des Tobin, and with Dr Wiete Westerhof at the Netherlands Institute for Pigmentary Disorders in Amsterdam.

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University - Public Relations - Annual Reports - 1999 Contents - Research

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