Jun-Sung Park, a senior researcher of oriental medicine cosmetics research team, received the Grand Prize for his research that contributes to the development of the cosmetics industry on April 9.
The key research contributing to receiving the award was “A Research on the Development of Green Fermentation Technology to Discover O-Dihydroxyisoflavone (ODI), a New Active Component, in the Well-Aged Soybean Fermentation Food for the First Time in the World and to Have It Industrialized”. His research also won the First Prize (President KHIDI’s Award) of 2008 Health Industry Technology Awards.
The research has discovered three kinds of new ODI components in the traditional soybean food which has been fermented for at least three years and applied them to the mass production by eco-friendly green fermentation technology. ODI is a rare active component with excellent efficiency such as promoting skin whitening and hydration. However, it was difficult to make the products using ODI as it had to go through dozens of processes. Due to the difficulty, the price of ODI was over 10 billion won a gram.
In this research, for the first time in the world, AmorePacific developed the completely new green fermentation system to ease the difficulty dramatically and finally succeeded in the mass production using ODI, not with chemical synthetic method but with green fermentation. It helped us to secure the economic feasibility of raw materials. In recent years, cosmetics using fermentation technology became popular. So the various fermented extracts are utilized for raw materials for cosmetics, but most of them were made by artificial fermentation through injection of microorganism. Our green fermentation technology puts a conversion technology for eco-friendly organism in practice actively as it is, and develops the process of manufacturing cosmetics from the raw materials through the eco-friendly system.
This research attracted a lot of attention from overseas. So its paper was published in a famous scientific journal Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letter, IF 2.604, consecutively for two years in 2008 and 2009. Also, AmorePacific were invited to ASCS Conference 2008 and “World Soybean Conference Research 2009” to give presentations, and AmorePacific have applied for a patent on this research.
Jun-Sung Park, a senior researcher of oriental medicine cosmetics research team in AmorePacific, said, "This research is finding an economical and eco-friendly technology to convert the materials in nature into the functional materials for cosmetics, because it is impossible to manufacture cosmetics from the raw materials using the conventional organic synthetic methods and to get it industrialized as there are only tiny amounts of it in nature. AmorePacific will continue this research on conversion technology for eco-friendly organism to have excellent product power and at the same time AmorePacific will develop eco-friendly products."
On the other hand, the awards ceremony was held at the 100th Anniversary Building of Seoul National University of Technology at 9:40AM on April 9.
[Note] About Dongam Cosmetics Scientist Awards
Dongam Cosmetics Scientist Awards is designed to encourage the researchers who make outstanding accomplishments in developing the raw materials for cosmetics or to contribute to the development of cosmetics industry and strengthen the competitiveness. This award is hosted by Beautynury Co., Ltd., and sponsored by COSMAX, the cosmetics company dedicated to OEM ODM.