Procter & Gamble (United States)

Formulators today know that when traditional surfactants and polymers are replaced new problems occur. What was before a 'thickening problem' becomes a 'miscibility problem': the ingredients do not play well with each other anymore. However, the scientific rules are not different for these systems, which can also be understood and controlled. This study was therefore made, focusing on one of the important challenges, namely the phase separation and miscibility problem of polymers and surfactants in aqueous solution in ratios and concentrations of interest as shampoo chassis. There are three main reasons for these problems: (1) Impurities and variability from raw materials, (2) by-products or excess components and (3) high levels of background salt remaining from processing. In this work, the third factor has been investigated to learn when salts should be reduced or counteracted depending on the polymer type used for enabling thickening in the new formula spaces. Thus, the study is fundamental in nature but aims to facilitate communication with suppliers of both surfactants and polymers as well as with colleague formulators. It aims at an increased holistic approach where all ingredients are acknowledged constituents of the system, and even minor additions of simple salts are noted as relevant variables to control to maximize product performance. Visual characterization of phase behaviour and viscosity assessment has been performed where three polymers have been combined with two different sulphate-free surfactants. Emphasis has been put on the effect of background salts. The levels of background salts affect both viscosity and compatibility of the systems investigated, however, to different extents depending on the nature of the materials. It is therefore important to control the levels of salt (often included in the raw materials), and how this affects the nature of the polymer-surfactant interactions, to reach the desired formulation attributes. While prior knowledge based on classical aqueous polymer-surfactant systems was seen to be valid also for newer sulphate-free systems (as long as the salt concentration could be controlled), fully compatible mixtures where viscosity and surfactant concentrations truly meet the levels desired for the end formulation proved difficult to find.

Radio frequency (RF) fingerprinting is widely used for supporting physical-layer security in various wireless applications. While existing passive RF tags often require complex structures or suffer from negative gain in miniaturized designs, this paper presents a single-layer planar meander line antenna that uniquely achieves both miniaturization and positive realized gain, enabling direct integration with nonlinear passive devices for cost-effective RF fingerprinting. We first propose a miniaturized meander line dipole, achieved by two folded arms on two sides of the substrate. This leads to an antenna with a simple feeding structure and compact size, making it ideal for planar integration. Two antennas on Rogers 4350B and ultra-thin flexible Panasonic Felios were fabricated, achieving small size at 0.21×0.06×0.004λ<sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">0</sub><sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sup> and 0.14×0.1×0.0008λ<sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">0</sub><sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sup> with realized gain of 1.87 dBi and 1.46 dBi, respectively. The passive tag consists of the proposed antenna structure and an integrated RF Schottky diode, and is further developed on both substrates, aiming to generate inter-modulation products (IMP) due to the nonlinearity of the diode, which can be used for device identification through classification algorithms. We investigate the nonlinearity of the designed tags for transmission at 15 dBm using two-tone signals. All tags produce a significant increased power at IMP frequencies at a range of 0.4 m. The tags on Rogers substrate provide around 23 dB IMP power increase and tags on flexible substrate embedded in lossy material provide around 16 dB power increase. These findings confirm that the proposed solution offers a simple passive tag design to support unique nonlinear signatures for RF fingerprinting applications in a simple, low-cost device.

Increasing the concentration of intravenous (IV) biologic formulations to render them appropriate for subcutaneous (SC) delivery is challenging because it impacts many interrelated variables, including volume, viscosity, and stability. This study gathered drug formulation expert insights regarding these challenges as well as development approach preferences and perceptions concerning formulation volume. Biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry experts familiar with creating high-concentration (≥ 100mg/mL) biologic drug formulations for SC delivery completed an online survey between 26 April and 7 May 2024. In total, there were 100 respondents included. When asked to rank seven approaches to transitioning a formulation from IV to SC administration, responses showed that increasing drug concentrations to reduce injection volume and/or changing the primary container were considered riskier, more time-consuming, and more costly than maintaining the concentration and using an on-body delivery system (OBDS). The greatest challenges mentioned were solubility issues (75%), viscosity-related challenges (72%), and aggregation issues (68%). Most respondents (69%) reported delays in clinical trials or product launches due to high-concentration SC formulation challenges. Of these, 33.3% experienced delays of 6-9months (weighted mean: 11.3months), while 4.3% indicated that trials or launches were canceled entirely due to formulation difficulties. In conclusion, making minimal drug formulation concentration changes to an IV biologic formulation may reduce the risk, time commitment, and cost associated with developing a SC biologic formulation. Further education is needed around the transition of traditional IV formulations to low-concentration, large-volume SC formulations utilizing delivery formats such as an SC infusion pump or OBDS.

ABSTRACTSex hormones regulating the menstrual cycle influence sebaceous gland cell lipogenesis and the feeling of skin oiliness or dryness on the face. The aim of this study was to elucidate sebaceous lipogenesis in females during the menstrual cycle and define their facial sebum composition. Sebum was sampled from cheeks and foreheads in 38 Chinese women, 19 with sebometry ≤ 70 μg/cm2 (low sebometry group, LS), and 19 with sebometry ≥ 150 μg/cm2 (high sebometry group, HS), in the ovulation phase (OP) and in the early luteal phase (ELP). In addition, the follicular phase (FP) and the late luteal phase (LLP) were examined within the HS group. Sebum lipid classes were quantified by GCMS and LCMS. The HS skin type was characterized by presenting more sebum lipids on the cheeks and the forehead than the LS skin type, respectively. In the HS subgroup, multivariate analysis of forehead sebum data was applied to the amounts assessed at FP, OP, ELP, and LLP. Our data detected a fluctuation of facial sebogenesis during the menstrual cycle.

The industrial applications of surfactant solutions areboth numerousand extremely diverse, demonstrating the importance of these systemsin everyday life and driving the need for a systematic approach todesigning sustainable surfactant molecules adapted to the specificrequirements of each application. Given the very large space of possiblemolecules, the identification of candidate surfactants that achievea balance between the optimal physicochemical properties of the productand minimal environmental and health impacts is extremely challenging.In this work, a formulation and solution framework based on Computer-AidedMolecular Design is proposed for surfactant design. A novel multistagemethodology is developed based on the initial generation of promisingcandidates for the two constituents of a surfactant, the hydrophilichead and the hydrophobic tail, followed by the multiobjective optimizationof surfactant molecules. This decomposition results in an effectivesolution strategy. In addition to constraints that ensure the generationof feasible molecules, specific structural constraints can be incorporatedin the formulation, accelerating the discovery and optimization process.Data-driven predictive models for the most relevant surfactant properties,such as critical micelle concentration, Krafft point, surface tension,toxicity, and biodegradability, are developed and implemented in theoptimization formulation. Two case studies are tackled, successfullygenerating novel surfactant molecules. The proposed framework couldbe extended to more complex structures, such as two-headed or Geminisurfactants.

A comprehensive review of existing toxicity and human exposure data for the ultraviolet filter avobenzone (butyl methoxydibenzoylmethane) was conducted to assess its safety as currently used in over-the-counter sunscreen formulations. Avobenzone has a suitable safety profile without any clear markers of toxicity or endpoints of concern. There are sufficient clinical studies and in vitro and in vivo toxicity studies in animal models to assess avobenzone’s pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and potential toxicological properties, supportive of its long history of safe use. No harmonized dermal absorption value was available, but the clinical data indicate low percutaneous absorption of avobenzone in humans (≤0.59% of the applied dose). There were no data to characterize the distribution of avobenzone; however, four tentative metabolites of avobenzone have been identified, and limited excretion in urine was demonstrated in human biomonitoring studies. Avobenzone generally did not cause dermal irritation or sensitization, but indications of photoallergy have been reported in clinical case studies. The acute toxicity profile indicated that avobenzone has minimal toxicity. The no-observed-adverse-effect level (NOAEL) for general toxicity from a rat dietary subchronic toxicity study was 450 mg/kg/day. There was no evidence of avobenzone effects on immune tissues or the estrogen, androgen, or thyroid systems. Although there were no formal 2-year carcinogenicity studies for avobenzone, a 90-day dietary exposure study in rats did not show any increase in hyperplasia of any tissue or evidence of cytotoxicity, and avobenzone has not shown any indication of genotoxicity either in vitro or in vivo. Together, this indicates that key events for modes of action for avobenzone are absent and carcinogenicity in humans is unlikely. Based on the selected rat subchronic NOAEL and conservative assumptions for estimating the systemic exposure dose (SED) from the application of sunscreen products, margins of exposure (defined as the ratio of NOAEL to SED) greater than 100 were obtained for avobenzone. Therefore, the available data show that avobenzone is unlikely to pose a risk to human health when used in sunscreen products at concentrations up to the permitted maximum usage levels in the United States and Canada, which is 3%.