Researchers in the Penn State College of Medicine are making progress toward a safer treatment for acne.

The study focused on how the drug isotretinoin treats acne and was under the direction of Dr. Diane Thiboutot, professor of dermatology in the College of Medicine.

Isotretinoin is the most powerful treatment for acne on the market today but is linked too a significant list of side effects, most notably severe birth defects in the children of pregnant women using the drug. It is generally used as a last option for acne treatment because of both the usual success of less powerful topical drugs and oral antibiotics and its dangerous side effects, she said.

Thiboutot and her colleagues examined isotretinoin's effects on the gene lipocalin 2 and the protein it encodes, neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL). After finding that both the gene and the protein were more prevalent in the patients taking isotretinoin, the research moved to tissue culture derived from human sebaceous glands.

"We treated the cells with the drug, and we got an increase in the expression of the lipocalin gene and the protein NGAL," she said. "So we purchased the NGAL protein and treated the sebaceous cells with the protein and found we got apoptosis in the sebaceous cells, just like in the patient scans."

Thiboutot concluded that they believe NGAL is the isotretinoin's mediator of apoptosis, programmed cell death, and what causes the acne to heal. She also noted that the aim of her study has now shifted accordingly toward finding different compounds that would be able to increase lipocalin 2 without such prohibitive side effects.

"There might be other drugs that activate this protein that are safer to use," she said. "And that's what we're trying to find now."

Penn State students seemed optimistic about the possibility of a new acne treatment drug's release as the result of Thiboutot's research.

"It's exciting to think something so powerful will be on the market," said Haley McClernon (freshman-engineering). "It's too bad it's missing our generation."

Shannon Zabel (freshman-liberal arts) added, "I think it sounds like really promising research, and it could definitely benefit adolescents."