An April 7th Business Insider article had good news for puberty-stricken teens: an acne vaccine may be on the horizon. Researchers at UCSD have developed a vaccine that could put an end to extreme acne. The vaccine doesn’t actually kill the P. acnes bacteria that cause acne, because our bodies need them. Rather, it attacks toxic proteins secreted by the bacteria that're associated with inflammation leading to acne.
The NHS estimates 5% of women and 1% of men suffer from adult cases of acne, and the numbers are on the rise. The new vaccine has been tested on biopsies collected from acne patients with promising results. The next step is trials on real patients, but that could be one to two years away. This may not be soon enough as last year a study found a 200% increase in the number of adults seeking specialist acne treatment.
