By Laura Medina
Dr. Björn Örvar is Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of BIOEFFECT.
From increasing the utilization of EGF, or epidermal growth factor, helps burn victims grow new skin and speed wound recovery. He discovered this while studying plant stress and how they recover.
To realizing Dr. Björn Örvar can grow and harvest EGF from the common barley seed, using just plant stem cell technology. That helped him win a Nobel Prize in science.
Since he discover an easier way to grow EGF, why extend the use from burn victims and wounds to really great skincare.
That's BioEffect. Since 1986, medical research into growth factors has exploded. Huge breakthroughs include life-saving treatments such as the use of G-CSF, a growth factor that induces the production of white blood cells after chemotherapy. EGF, or epidermal growth factor, helps burn victims grow new skin and speed wound recovery. But EGF may also be used to replenish the body’s own supply, which diminishes with age. EGF application stimulates the body’s own skin cells to proliferate, increasing skin turnover and radiance while slowing the aging process. It boosts production of collagen and elastin, the skin’s bouncy scaffolding, increasing tone and elasticity. It boosts the skin’s capacity to store water and reduce water loss. The result is healthier, denser, more hydrated, younger-looking skin. In scientific research, EGF has been grown in bacteria, but this poses a risk of endotoxins for humans. Other means of obtaining EGF present ethical, moral, and legal issues, as in the use of human cells. After many years of research, the scientists at BIOEFFECT pioneered an astounding method of growing a plant-based replica of EGF in barley. By engineering barley’s own genetic code for growth so that it most resembles human EGF, BIOEFFECT created barley-based EGF. Because barley is self-pollinating, there is no risk of cross-breeding. In addition to being safe, pure, and efficient, BIOEFFECT’s EGF is grown in a carbon emissions-free greenhouse in inert volcanic pumice.
Dr. Björn Örvar,
“By engineering barley's own genetic code for growth so that it most resembles human EGF, BIOEFFECT created barley-based EGF”
“The result is healthier, denser, more hydrated, younger-looking skin”
"I knew I needed good tools in my pocket to innovate, so after eight years of teaching, I decided to do my Ph.D. in plant molecular genetics at the University of British Columbia. I got a grant and focused on how plants respond to stress. I was lucky because the field of human and plant genetics was just starting to open up: it was a perfect intersection of my interests and the science at the time. Timing is so important!"
"It’s fascinating because plants can’t get up and walk away when they’re stressed by drought, harsh weather, or pollution. Later, at McGill University, I did research on how plants sense cold and prepare for winter. I used transgenic plants in my research, cloning certain stress genes and reintroducing them into another plant. I was trying to dissect the cold signaling mechanism. This was very hard because experiments don’t work out and you have to keep doing them over and over. You have to be so persistent. It was a hard job and what I learned, I used later in the lab."
"Human genetics and human cell biology are much better known than plant cell biology, so it’s a huge resource—if you know where to look."
"There are so many similarities between human and plant cells—genes, composition of cell membrane. You can look at genes in human cells and then compare, looking for the same things in plant cells. I ended up reading more about human genetics than plant genetics! Human genetics and human cell biology are much better known than plant cell biology, so it’s a huge resource—if you know where to look. You must ask if there are similar mechanisms in both and then look for them. Plants can’t escape difficult conditions, so what the plant does in response is produce all kinds of chemicals to survive. Plant chemistry is far more complicated than human chemistry: they have an extra group of pathways that can produce all sorts of chemicals that we can’t, like fragrances, nicotine, or opium."
"Barley is a closed biological system: it’s self-fertilizing, meaning its pollen will not pollinate flowers on a different plant. This is extremely important for the business of molecular farming—it’s a contained system, you’re not spreading pollen with new genes to other plants. We can grow twenty-five different kinds of growth factors in barley plants, side by side in the greenhouse, without ever worrying about cross-breeding."
