Gerwin Puppels is the founder and managing director of RiverD International (www.riverd.com), which develops instruments and diagnostic applications, based on Raman spectroscopic tissue e analysis. An example is the gen2-SCA family of in vivo skin analysis instruments. He is an associate professor at the Erasmus-university Medical Center in Rotterdam, The Netherlands and has been active in the field of Raman spectroscopy for over 30 years, making significant contributions to the development of the technique. His current research interests include skin analysis and Raman-guided surgery/biopsy. He has authored over 150 peer-reviewed papers and 18 patents. He holds a Ph.D in applied physics from the University of Twente, The Netherlands.

Skin models vs in vivo skin: insights from Raman spectroscopy

Skin models play an important role in the transition to animal free testing. However, just as animal skin is not the same as human skin, skin models are not human skin, even if they look much the same under a microscope. One of the important functions of the skin is barrier formation; to keep water in and to keep the outside world … out. That process starts immediately after birth. In vivo Raman spectroscopy offers a clear, non-invasive window on this barrier development. 
The presentation will summarize the information about the skins’ molecular composition and molecular anatomy, barrier formation and skin penetration, that can be obtained by in vivo Raman spectroscopy. 
It will then make the comparison between in vivo skin and various skin models with respect to these aspects. Raman spectroscopy could serve as a great, perhaps sometimes confronting, tool to further guide and test the development of skin models towards becoming real life-like skin models, in appearance, but also in terms of molecular composition and skin physiological and functional aspects.