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These L.A. musicians investigated a medical mystery. What they discovered launched a new skincare line

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These L.A. musicians investigated a medical mystery. What they discovered launched a new skincare line

The love story of musicians Ann Marie Simpson-Einziger and Mike Einziger was fortified in a lab.

After meeting through a mutual colleague in 2010, the Santa Monica-based couple’s courtship began the following year, as they were collaborating with Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer on a series of film scores. Einziger is best known as the founding guitarist of California-based rock band Incubus. His wife is a renowned composer and violinist for artists including Jethro Tull, Ringo Starr, Dave Matthews Band and Stevie Nicks.

The couple had been seeing one another for only about a year when together they stumbled upon a medical mystery. It resulted in a thrilling scientific discovery, the founding of a biotech beauty company called Mother Science — and their own unique happily-ever-after.

“It was an unexpected journey,” said Simpson-Einziger.

“We were simply trying to answer a series of unanswered scientific questions,” her husband added.

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It all began in 2012 when Simpson-Einziger developed a fungal infection while traveling abroad. A classically trained violinist by trade, she was performing with composer A.R. Rahman in India when she noticed lightened patches of skin on her back and under her bra line. They resembled “loosely drawn flower blooms, with rounded edges,” she said.

After consulting her dermatologist, Simpson-Einziger was diagnosed with a temporary fungal infection called Tinea versicolor, which can lighten or darken skin pigmentation as a result of humidity.

“It’s an imbalance of the microbiome,” Simpson-Einziger said. “The condition was harmless, it resolves on its own and [I was told] that the lightened patches of skin would all go back to normal. But I got so curious.”

“We learned pretty quickly that there were no real hypotheses about how this was happening.”

— Mike Einziger, co-founder of Mother Science and Incubus guitarist

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Ann Marie Simpson-Einziger and Mike Einziger both have science backgrounds, which is what inspired their initial curiosity. She majored in biology at UVA and later taught physics and chemistry between music gigs. He studied at Harvard.

(Al Seib / For The Times)

Armed with an undergraduate degree in biology from the University of Virginia, the former physics and chemistry teacher pored through science journals like Pigment International and Chembiochem to find articles that better explained the science behind her skin condition. She then began to wonder if whatever had caused it could also be used as a skincare aid that reduced dark spots.

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She enlisted the help of her then-fiancé, Einziger, who also happened to have a background in science. He had recently completed the two-year Special Student program at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, where he studied cosmology and evolutionary biology. He still had access to the university’s considerable research databases, which meant he could help her look up articles on Tinea versicolor. Soon, he joined her obsession.

“There was tons of literature to research, but nothing coming at it from our perspective,” said Einziger. “We learned pretty quickly that there were no real hypotheses about how this was happening.”

Though they still couldn’t prove it, Simpson-Einziger’s theory that her skin condition could be of use in the beauty world kept them both up at night.

“I actually had a nightmare that somebody took her idea,” he said.

It was then, in 2015, that he called Dr. Jonathan Sackier, a family friend and biotech and medical entrepreneur, who co-invented robotic surgery.

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Four silver bottles labeled Mother Science

In 2023 Mother Science launched its first product, the Molecular Hero Serum ($89). The product is meant to reduce hyperpigmentation and brighten skin.

(Al Seib / For The Times)

“I taught his daughter violin lessons when I was a recent college graduate living in Virginia,” Simpson-Einziger said.

“We went to [him] fully prepared that we were going to get laughed out of the room,” Einziger added.

Sackier remembers the couple’s uncertainty during the phone call. “Ann-Marie was in the background, whispering, ‘He’s going to think we’re idiots,’” he said. “[Mike] asked if I could identify what it was about the fungal infection that was causing depigmentation and having identified it, could I synthesize or somehow isolate the chemical so that we could do something to impact pigmentation disorders.”

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A surgeon by specialty, Sackier connected them with his colleague, Timothy Macdonald, a scientist and professor emeritus of chemistry and pharmacology at the University of Virginia.

“I have taken many projects to him over the years,” Sackier said. “I call him ‘Dr. No,’ because he always says, ‘No, that doesn’t make sense. No, that won’t work.’ When I told him this, he went, ‘Holy moly, that’s impressive.’”

Macdonald began advising the couple and helped connect them with a North Carolina-based research organization called PharmaDirections. The drug development company helped design a scientific program to explore various compounds that had caught the Einzigers’ attention while researching.

After countless studies, they discovered that a naturally occurring molecule that had co-evolved with the human microbiome, Malassezin (pronounced mal-uh-say-zin), could be beneficial for sun spots. While the molecule was identified and named in 2001, the Einzigers were the first to recognize that Malassezin could be valuable in the context of skincare.

“Malassezin is made from a yeast,” said New York-based dermatologist Dr. Amy Wechsler. “When someone has the yeast infection on their skin, the skin often bleaches temporarily.”

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The couple filed an application to patent the discovery in 2016. (It was officially granted in 2018.) They then worked with a team of scientists including cosmetic chemist Susan Goldsberry and beauty innovation entrepreneur Tim McCraw to develop Malassezin into a topical serum after previously manufacturing it through a separate process called chemical synthesis.

They began testing to see if it could benefit melanocytes, the skin cells that produce melanin, the dark pigment in question. The couple used their personal savings to fund the initial research.

“I justified it as, ‘How much would I pay for an education where experts in the field teach me how to characterize a molecule and then commercialize it?’” Simpson-Einziger said. “That one-on-one education was worth what we put into investigating this molecule.”

They brought on beauty industry veteran Edna Coryell, McCraw’s daughter, as co-founder and CEO of Mother Science in August 2017 to oversee further research and development, which involved in vitro studies, 3D cell cultures, ex vivo skin testing and genetic analysis. Coryell had never brought a new ingredient to the market until Malassezin.

“It is very rare,” said Coryell. “Truly, as we were going through [the process], it was writing the playbook for this.’”

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The Einzigers also collaborated with Dr. Pearl Grimes, director of the Vitiligo & Pigmentation Institute of Southern California, who specializes in vitiligo and pigmentation disorders.

“This is somebody who’s been looking at Tinea versicolor for decades,” Einziger said. “Her first reaction was, ‘How did you guys figure this out?’”

“I was 100% fascinated,” Grimes said of reviewing their initial in vitro studies. “The science [and] the concept was disruptive.”

Grimes assembled a clinical program, which led to proof-of-concept data that’s since been published in peer-reviewed journals including the American Academy of Dermatology and Journal of Drugs in Dermatology.

She went so far as to take a skin biopsy from her own elbow for lab testing. Using VISIA skin analysis technology, she found that the serum helped fade hyperpigmentation on the sample.

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“That’s when I really knew that it worked,” Grimes said. “I used it in a stubborn area, and I could clearly see via photographic documentation that it was responding.”

“Having holes punched in my face was an ultimate act of belief in what we’ve made.”

— Ann Marie Simpson-Einziger, co-founder of Mother Science and violinist

A couple walking and holding hands

“We had a lot of people who said, ‘You don’t want to do this. This is too hard. It’s going to take years.’” Simpson-Einziger said. “I remember thinking, ‘Years don’t scare me.’”

(Al Seib / For The Times)

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Einziger also biopsied a patch on his arm for Grimes to analyze. “We felt responsible,” he said. “Mine was done before we even did the human clinical study.”

Simpson-Einziger joked that she too “put real skin in the game” after she said she had her face punch-biopsied — a procedure in which an instrument is used to remove a deeper skin sample — three times.

“Having holes punched in my face was an ultimate act of belief in what we’ve made,” Simpson-Einziger said.

Once the Einzigers confirmed that the data supported their initial hypothesis in a human clinical study, they moved forward with a business plan for what eventually became Mother Science. (It joins the couple’s two other co-founded businesses, including Mixhalo, a networking technology company for live events.)

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Mother Science — named as a nod to French physicist and chemist Marie Curie — was born as a result of raising an initial round of approximately $3.2 million in seed funding from a small group of venture capitalists and angel investors, including Hawktail’s Michael Polansky and Drew Houston, the co-founder of Dropbox. After more than six years of research, Malassezin became the DNA of Mother Science, which officially launched in 2023 with its first product, Molecular Hero Serum ($89). The product is meant to reduce hyperpigmentation and brighten skin.

“It’s a powerful antioxidant,” Simpson-Einziger said. “When we started testing, we learned that Malassezin happens to offer superior protection against hydroxyl and peroxyl free radicals, which are [some of] the most damaging. We had this molecule that was going to do something marvelous in protecting the skin.”

A second product, Retinol Synergist ($96), was released earlier this year. And Molecular Genesis Barrier Repair Moisturizer ($68), featuring Malassezin, will be released on Jan. 7.

“Malassezin is really versatile, as it’s able to target hyperpigmentation, improve the skin’s moisture barrier and provide potent antioxidant protection without any irritation,” said Connecticut-based dermatologist Dr. Mona Gohara, who is also an associate clinical professor at Yale University. “The beauty of it is it’s gentle but also highly efficacious.”

In 2016, the same year the Einzigers filed a patent for their scientific discovery, the couple married. They are now parents to four children including a nearly one-year-old son. Because their courtship intersected with their scientific passion project, they consider Mother Science their fifth child.

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“We had a lot of people who said, ‘You don’t want to do this. This is too hard. It’s going to take years.’” Simpson-Einziger said, pausing. “I remember thinking, ‘Years don’t scare me. I have a baby. I’m going to have to take care of a human for 18 years.’ There are no guarantees when you have a child how they’re going to turn out, but you do it out of love, out of passion, and it makes your life richer.”

While the couple continues to grow Mother Science’s product lineup, Simpson-Einziger is most proud of their process of discovery itself.

“We’re excited about contributing to science, and having that legacy as part of our brand,” she said.

She hopes Malassezin will one day be as universally known as Vitamin C and hyaluronic acid.

“I want people talking about Malassezin, not even about our brand, just about Malassezin,” she said.

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In other words, she and her husband hope the ingredients of their products will be front and center — not themselves.

“Nobody is excited about coming to me for their skincare needs,” Einziger, who still regularly sells out stadiums with Incubus, said with a laugh. “I’m just a person who plays music who happens to be curious about the skin microbiome.”

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Werner Herzog says it's not good to circle 'your own navel' but wrote a memoir anyway

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Microfeminism: The next big thing in fighting the patriarchy

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Microfeminism: The next big thing in fighting the patriarchy

An abortion rights demonstrator holds a sign near the U.S. Capitol during the annual Women’s March to support Women’s Rights in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 8, 2022.

Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images


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If you have ever intentionally addressed your female colleagues first during a meeting or shut down a guy trying to manspread on the subway, you may have been practicing microfeminism — small but meaningful acts of uplifting women in male-dominated spaces.

“When I send an email, let’s say to a CEO, and you have to copy their assistant for scheduling purposes, if the assistant is a female, I will always, in the ’email to’ line, enter their address before the CEO’s,” Ashley Chaney said in a viral TikTok post this year.

“That’s my favorite form of microfeminism,” she said. “What’s yours?”

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Chaney did not invent the term, but with her video garnering thousands of comments and video responses of other people explaining how they go about promoting women’s voices, she introduced the word to a new audience.

“I always call the dads first when the kids are sick and the moms for billing questions,” one preschool worker wrote in response.

“I write real estate contracts and I always put the wife’s name first,” another respondee wrote. “The [husbands] question it a lot even though it makes zero difference to the contract, just their ego.”

These acts might seem trivial to some, but experts say the little tricks can have a big impact.

Little “winks and nods”

Chaney, the woman behind the viral TikTok, said she was inspired to talk about her acts of microfeminism after an upsetting day of dealing with a male coworker.

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“I remember particularly just thinking, god, there are these things that happen to me on a daily basis that drive me crazy. And I know in my head that I’m doing these little sort of winks and nods to the women around me. I wonder if they notice,” she said.

The response, Chaney said, has been overwhelming.

“It is something that women A) notice and just like me are also trying to do, which I love. And moreover, if they hadn’t heard of it, they’re now inspired and they’re seeing tiny ways in which they can uplift women around them,” she said.

“I think that people really resonate with that because it gives them something to do that’s not going out to march or burn your bras or whatever. It’s like, ‘Hey, these are things that I can do and I can actually affect change in a small way.’ “

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The backlash

While many of the comments were positive, Chaney said there was also a wave of mostly men who ridiculed and derided her stance, with some going so far as to say she should die.

“In the comments, I got people saying that I was a misandrist and that I was doing witchcraft,” Chaney said.

“The first thing they attack is your physical appearance. So I got everything from fat, ugly, old, to stupid and a dumb woman,” she said. “Honestly, it scared me so much.”

While the backlash Chaney received was frightening — she stopped posting online for weeks after the episode — ultimately, it made her more secure in her beliefs.

Kelly Crowder, center, holds up a sign as thousands of protesters gather for the Women's March against President Donald Trump Jan. 21, 2017, in Los Angeles.

Kelly Crowder, center, holds up a sign as thousands of protesters gather for the Women’s March against President Donald Trump Jan. 21, 2017, in Los Angeles.

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“It has inspired me to identify more loudly and publicly as a feminist,” she said. “My entire platform is not dedicated to feminism, but I am being louder about it, particularly as people have criticism or critiques of it. I’m like, OK, that means that there is a need for a loud voice here.”

Everyday sexism

Research has shown that everyday instances of sexism affect women at all levels, including in matters of physical and mental health.

Microfeminist proponents hope to mitigate some of those effects in their own personal ways.

Halima Kazem-Stojanovic, Ph.D., is the associate director of the Feminist, Gender, Sexuality studies program at Stanford University.

She says it’s important to normalize addressing everyday gender biases in order to make bigger changes.

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“When you start to adjust society’s norms, then that has a lasting effect. That has a conscious and a subconscious effect,” Kazem-Stojanovic said.

She said that small things like changing male-centered language — for example, using “guys” as a catchall term for people — are the kind of changes that are easy to make and will benefit everyone in the long term.

“Knowing that to keep things more neutral really kind of helps everybody because the patriarchy hasn’t even helped masculinity,” Kazem-Stojanovic said, noting that patriarchal expectations of manliness lead to strict limitations on how men can present themselves and express their emotions.

Feminism after Roe

Demonstrators hold up their banners as they protest on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, May 4, 2017.

Demonstrators hold up their banners as they protest on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 4, 2017.

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Kazem-Stojanovic said that working against the patriarchy is as important now as ever before, particularly in light of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and restrictive abortion bans that have cropped up across the country in the years since.

Despite these changes in the current political environment, Kazem-Stojanovic said that the virality of Chaney’s TikTok video gives her hope that the younger generations understand how important it is to fight for women’s rights, no matter the scale.

“I’m a mom of two girls, teenagers … and I see them engaging in social media. And I think there’s this recent interest with microfeminism stems from a video from TikTok, which my girls are always on,” she said. “I find it interesting that little snippets of these long-held kind of feminist ways of thinking and being and embodying feminism have kind of come out in these modern multimedia little videos, which I find really interesting, which makes me happy to see.”

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