An AI model trained on living human skin

The gist

• Michael Polansky co-founded Outer Biosciences in 2022 with chief scientist Kyung-Jin Jang, CTO Chris Hinojosa and chief business officer Stanley King, and serves as CEO.
• The startup sources human skin discarded after surgery, mostly plastic surgery, via biobanks including the National Disease Research Interchange and the Cooperative Human Tissue Network, and keeps it alive for up to a month versus an industry norm of days.
• Polansky says the 30-day tissue retains its "day-zero architecture and preserves its day-zero epidermal, stromal and immune-associated molecular programs."
• An AI model predicts which untested chemicals will affect a specific skin function, the living tissue tests them, and results feed back into the model, moving the company from a couple of leads over 18 months to a new candidate roughly every six weeks, with six active leads and several dozen hits logged.
• The company sells cosmetic ingredients rather than drugs, skipping FDA approval in favor of a standardized industry name plus OECD-guideline safety testing, and licenses finished ingredients to beauty or pharma partners.
• Outer Biosciences has raised roughly $23 million from backers including Wing Ventures, Initialized and Polansky's firm Hawktail, and employs 19 people, all but Polansky based just outside Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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