It stings and does not necessarily leave good memories for walkers.
Despite its pretty purple flower in a ball, the milk thistle does not necessarily have good press.
Even if it is sometimes used in essential oil to treat liver diseases.
Thanks to global warming, it has left its region of origin, around the Mediterranean, to go up towards the Loire Valley, where it colonizes the edges of the fields.
Better still, in Orléans (Loiret), we plan to exploit this wild thistle, often considered a weed.
Coordinated by the Center for Molecular Biophysics (CBM) of the University of Orléans within a program called Valbiocosm (Promotion of biodiversity in Centre-Val de Loire for cosmetics), four public laboratories in Orléans and Tours, and two industrial laboratories, that of Caudalie in Gidy (Loiret) and Sederma in Yvelines, have demonstrated an unknown property: milk thistle has a restorative action on skin damaged by psoriasis, a skin disease that causes alopecia areata .
Two patents and a new probe
"We have identified its ability to regulate microRNA21, which is a key factor in remodeling affected tissues", summarizes Professor Patrick Baril, who coordinated the work between 2017 and 2021. At a cost of 1.2 million Euros, the project was financed by European funds and the Centre-Val de Loire region, under the aegis of Cosmetic Valley, the group of cosmetic companies based in Chartres (Eure-et-Loir).
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For now, no brand of cosmetics or care wants to promote this discovery.
It must be said that the remedies for psoriasis are already numerous, and that no one grows milk thistle for industrial volumes.
This does not prevent Valbiocosm researchers from filing two patents under the aegis of the CNRS, including one on the properties of the plant.
The second patent is more technical.
“The work to identify the plant active ingredient has enabled us to develop an electroluminescent probe which characterizes the active ingredient more simply than what is currently practiced by laboratories with microbiological tests.
We save a lot of time,” explains Patrick Baril, who will be able to use this discovery for work on other plants in the region.
He says he is ready to put this new tool at the service of SMEs and ETIs (Intermediate-sized companies) in the territory.
