Marion Chambon is the winner of the Jeunes Talents France L'Oréal-Unesco prize for women in science, which has been awarded to 35 women scientists every year since 2007.
A doctoral student at the University of French Polynesia, after studying at the Institute of Pharmaceutical and Biological Sciences (ISPB) in Lyon and then at the University of Nantes, the young researcher is assessing the benefits of plants used in traditional medicine.
Her project: improving skin care with Polynesian plants. Her subjects: five local plants - Tamanu (Calophyllum inophyllum), Turmeric or Rea (Curcuma longa), tiara flowers (Gardenia taitensis), the roots of Aura (Ficus prolixa) and the green leaves of Tou (Cordia subcordata).
"The specificity of this Polynesian flora is that it is endemic to more than 60 %, and has been little studied from a chemical or biological point of view".said the young woman in an interview with France Bleu, before going on to explain that she was interested in the antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, healing and anti-cancer properties of plants, and then in their chemical composition, to find out which molecules make them up.
This work could be transposed from laboratory to industrial scale to develop cosmetic and pharmaceutical products.
Photo taken from the L'Oréal Foundation Linkedin profile © Julien Knaub and Nicolas Gouhier.
