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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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Video: The Most Stylish People of 2024

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Video: The Most Stylish People of 2024

Our Styles desk sees “style” more broadly than the way people dress. It’s your mannerisms, the way you conduct yourself, the way you move through the world. Anthony Rotunno, a fashion news editor for The New York Times, walks us through just some of the people — and surprises — on this year’s most stylish people list.

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They planned a simple day hike in Yosemite. Then they got lost in the snow

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They planned a simple day hike in Yosemite. Then they got lost in the snow

On May 20, 2016, my wife and I visited Yosemite National Park. Before we set out on a trail, I talked to a park ranger. I told her that I was looking for a picture of water reflecting the trees.

The ranger, a third-generation Yosemite employee, stated that Lukens Lake was one of the most beautiful places in the park.

“I think you get the best views in the park,” she said.

Highway 120 had opened the day before, and it was only a one-mile hike from the highway-adjacent trailhead to the lake.

We’d been to Yosemite before. At that time, I was living in Long Beach in a high-rise on Ocean Boulevard. I had an airplane and I flew us into Mariposa-Yosemite Airport. We rented a four-wheel drive van and stayed in Mariposa. The next day, we drove over and hiked to the lake.

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Between a Rock is a Los Angeles Times series that shares survival stories from the California wilderness.

We probably got there around 9 a.m. It just seemed like a simple little walk. We had proper attire and day packs. I checked the weather. There was nothing in the forecast that day. It was nice. It was cool. In Yosemite Valley, it was probably in the upper 40s.

As the morning wore on, the clouds covered the sky. It got gray and dark. The light was perfect for photographs. And it started to snow. It was one of those storms the mountains generate. The snow was coming down thick and in big flakes. We got five inches in about 40 minutes. I spent about two hours taking photos around the lake.

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“It just seemed like a simple little walk. We had proper attire and day packs. I checked the weather. There was nothing in the forecast that day. “

I got lost in the photography. It was just so beautiful, you didn’t want to leave. But, we got hungry. We only had a snack bar with us, and we had left a couple days’ worth of food in the car.

But our trail had disappeared. About noon was our first attempt to hike out. The hike in was about 10 minutes. We hiked for an hour and found no outlet.

Lukens Lake is a short hike from Highway 120, or Tioga Road.

Lukens Lake is a short hike from Highway 120, or Tioga Road.

(Tom Setterlund)

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When we headed out from the lake, we kept going straight. We took three different paths, but we were still probably half a mile from the road. We didn’t remember dog legging coming out. You’re headed down the trail one place, and all of a sudden, it makes a 30-degree turn to your left. We didn’t remember the big turn.

I knew there was going to be snow on the ground, and I thought if people go there, there’d be a trail on the ground, but I didn’t think through that next day. We knew the road was due south of where we were, but there was no sun. You couldn’t tell where south was.

The last time we tried, I was exhausted coming back and was falling down. We decided it wasn’t safe to keep trying. It was getting dark.

We cleared out an area under a tree where there was not as much snow and rested.

It was somewhere in the low 20s. We had a couple of the Mylar sheets, which I now know how to use. We wrapped them around ourselves, but they didn’t work because we were covered in snow. We were wet. Instead of reflecting warmth, they were just reflecting the cold. To use them correctly, you need to take your clothes off and put them against your body. We would shiver until our bodies got a little warm and then fall asleep, and then wake up because we were cold, and then shiver again and fall back to sleep.

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I carry several fire starting tools, but I thought we were over 10,000 feet, where no fires are allowed. I have read about people in survival situations being prosecuted for making a fire.

I thought somebody would see our car at the trailhead, but we hadn’t gotten a permit for the hike because it was just a day hike. To stay there overnight, you need a permit.

What had happened in that storm, unbeknownst to us, is that Highway 120 had been closed again because of ice — nobody was going to see our car. I’ve since realized no one would care anyway unless you told somebody outside the park, and they start calling and said, “Hey, they haven’t checked back in,” or got a permit.

The next morning was sunny and we hiked out. Once we saw the road, we knew we were safe. The car was full of food, and we sat inside and ate for an hour. I don’t remember what we ate, but it was delicious.

Lukens Lake is a short hike from Highway 120, or Tioga Road.

Lukens Lake is a short hike from Highway 120, or Tioga Road.

(Tom Setterlund)

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On the road 50 yards away was a car upside down on its hood. The roads were all completely iced over, snowed over and closed. The first person we saw was the snow plow driver, and he told us there were a couple wrecks coming up. People were flying up there, thinking “Whoo, the 120 is open! I can get to the coast!” There was obviously no warning to them that there was ice on the road.

The rental van was four-wheel drive, but I creeped. I was going 5 mph down that road, hoping I didn’t slide off of it. Further on, I ran into a park ranger, and then he realized he was the only one who had a key to unlock the gates. He said, “I’m glad you guys made it out. It’d be a while before someone found you.”

I had made a lot of safety assumptions that weren’t valid. It made me realize that, if I’m going to hike in the backcountry, I have to do it in a safer manner.

I knew we had parked north of the lake. I had looked at the trail map, but I didn’t have a compass on me. I didn’t have any of the things I carry today. I now use an app to track my location that works offline using satellites, and I own a Garmin GPS emergency device.

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I had to change my approach to being outdoors. I started reading a lot more, I started carrying a lot more. There’s nobody coming to save you. Maybe they’ll look for a corpse in a week.

When it comes down to it, you are going to have to walk out.

Tom Setterlund is a retired safety engineer who spends his time backcountry motorcycling, mostly on fire roads in the San Bernardino National Forest. He also enjoys traveling with his pop-up camper wherever the road leads. His retelling is edited for length and clarity.

Do you have a California wilderness survival story? We’d love to hear from you. Share your close encounter here.

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Elton John says he could not see his own musical because of an eye infection

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Elton John says he could not see his own musical because of an eye infection

Elton John performs on the South Lawn of the White House on Sept. 23, 2022.

Susan Walsh/AP


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Susan Walsh/AP

Elton John said his eyesight is so limited that he could not see the musical performance for which he scored.

He gave a speech Sunday in London, during the opening night of the musical adaptation of The Devil Wears Prada, which he scored.

“I haven’t been able to come to many of the previews because I’ve lost my eyesight, so it’s hard for me to see it,” he said. “But I love to hear it, and boy, it sounded good tonight.”

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John said in September on social media that he had been dealing with an eye infection since the summer, which resulted in “limited vision in one eye.”

“I am healing, but it’s an extremely slow process and it will take some time before sight returns to the impacted eye,” he said.

John, a five-time Grammy winner, said at the time he had been recovering at home and felt good about the progress he was making.

John has faced other recent medical challenges. During his “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” tour, an ambitious global run of hundreds of scheduled concerts that was billed as his last tour, he faced various health issues that forced him to reschedule and cut concerts short.

John won an Emmy Award in January, making him among a few artists to be an EGOT winner, meaning he has won Emmy, Grammy, Academy and Tony awards.

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