Skin Whitening Secrets

Award-winning research by Ottawa biochemists into technology that makes dark skin fairer is renewing controversy about a type of cosmetic product worth billions in Asian markets.

Two graduate students at Carleton University, Pratik Lodha and Eman Ahmed-Muhsin, have been developing Gloriel, a skin-lightening cream based on Nobel Prize-winning gene-silencing technology.

The product won $5,000 as a finalist in the 2007 Student Technology Venture Challenge, an annual business competition for post-secondary students in eastern Ontario and western Quebec.

The research has also been awarded additional funding from Carleton University and the inventors hope to patent it in two years so they can sell the rights to a cosmetic giant such as L’Oreal.

Lodha’s inspiration for the idea came from India, where he is from and where skin-lightening creams are a billion-dollar industry.

Critics have accused the industry of racism and imperialism. Ranni Moorthy, a U.K.-based actress from India, told CBC News the products are touted as cures, as if dark skin is “some kind of disease, to be put right.”

Read more: cbc.ca