Lifestyle
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.
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
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.
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.
“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.”
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.”
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.’”
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.
“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
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.)
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.
“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.
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.”
Lifestyle
An 84-year-old pop superstar just dropped an album — how does she sound so good?
Mina, one of the bestselling Italian musical artists of all time, just dropped a new album — at the age of 84.
She’s not a household name in the United States, though audiences in this country might recognize the performer’s unmistakable voice from the Netflix series Ripley, the HBO series The White Lotus, and the Pixar animated feature Luca.
But in her native country, Mina has been worshipped for decades — especially because of her powerful and distinctive voice.
“All generations have always identified with her voice and with her albums,” said Rome-based musicologist and music critic Paulo Prato.
Prato said Mina sings in many languages and is constantly reinventing herself.
“She can sing pop music, opera, jazz, rock and roll,” he said.
Retreat from the stage and the media
Like Barbra Streisand, another singer with an enduring career and a voice for the ages, Mina has sold more than 150 million records worldwide. But unlike Streisand, who has given live concerts over the past decade, Mina hasn’t performed in public since 1978.
“She chose to focus on recording and making the music she wanted to,” said independent scholar Rachel Haworth, who is based in the U.K. and has written a book about Mina.
Mina also doesn’t give media interviews. Haworth said the last time the general public was offered a glimpse into the artist’s creative process was in 2001, in a video live-streamed from her recording studio.
“It broke the server, because so many people wanted to see it,” Haworth said.
Signs of aging suggest authenticity
As a result of the relative secrecy that surrounds Mina’s work, and the toll aging takes on the human voice, Haworth said it’s hard to know just how she keeps her amazing voice going, or if that voice — especially in our age of artificial intelligence-generated replicas — is truly hers.
Mina’s use of imagery made with AI in at least one recent music video has prompted discussion, Haworth noted.
“There’s this kind of debate around, ‘Well, we never see her. How do we know if it’s even her?’” Haworth said. “And then you get the counter to that, where it’s, ‘Well, of course it’s her, because we know what she sounds like.’”
Mina’s representatives did not respond to NPR’s requests for comment.
But experts generally do believe it’s Mina’s authentic voice on the recordings because it plainly shows signs of aging.
“In the early years, she had a very clear voice — a lot of flexibility, a lot of range,” said Sarah Schneider, a voice speech pathologist at the University of California, San Francisco, who works with singers. “In listening to her most recent work, there’s a little bit more of a huskier, raspier sound to it — which is not unexpected.”
Navigating the aging voice
Schneider said just as our bodies age, so do our voices.
“Our breathing mechanism changes, our vocal folds themselves change, skin gets thinner, muscle gets smaller, potentially,” Schneider said.
She said Mina’s apparent use of backup singers on her new album, Gassa D’Amante, helps bolster her voice in the higher passages.
YouTube
And she added the singer’s retreat to the recording studio has likely worked in her favor over the years. It’s less physically taxing than keeping up with a relentless touring schedule.
And she owns her own label and studio. “Assuming she has control over her studio time, she’s going in when she wants and she’s doing as many takes as she wants,” Schneider said. “Being in control of those things allows for you to choose your best work.”
Not all artists have this kind of control — though many do have access to is the latest technology.
“I think pop stars are going to be more and more tempted to use AI-assisted voice software that will allow them to keep their vocal timbre and their vocal range maybe longer than their actual physical voices will allow them,” said musicologist and Switched on Pop podcast co-host Nate Sloan.
But Sloan said he hopes they’ll resist the temptation.
“Audiences want to hear a direct and unfiltered performance. They want to hear an artist’s vulnerabilities. They want to hear their flaws,” Sloan said. “Because that is what draws us to art is that human connection.”
Sloan said he gets excited when singers like Mina connect with listeners in an unvarnished way. “There’s space for older artists to make their voices heard,” he said.
Jennifer Vanasco edited this story for broadcast and digital. Chloee Weiner mixed the audio.
Lifestyle
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro Slams Luigi Mangione, Says He's 'No Hero'
CNN
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro is refusing to support the narrative painting Brian Thompson‘s suspected killer as a modern-day vigilante … slamming the notion as the murder case continues.
The politician spoke out in a press conference Monday after Luigi Mangione, the top person of interest in the fatal shooting of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, was arrested in Pennsylvania that same day.
While addressing reporters, Shapiro made it clear Mangione was “no hero,” adding … “In America, we do not kill people in cold blood to resolve policy differences or express a viewpoint.”
He doubled down on his stance by applauding the McDonald’s employee who called 911 on Mangione after spotting him at the fast food chain … labeling the staffer “the real hero in this story.”
Mangione has since been charged with forgery, carrying a firearm without a license, tampering with records or identification, and providing false identification to law enforcement.
It’s no secret Mangione’s profile has been on the rise after being named a person of interest in the murder investigation … his social media accounts saw its follower count increase by tens of thousands — before getting suspended.
Countless people have voiced their support for Mangione … with many expressing their own frustrations with the insurance industry. In fact, one person even launched a GoFundMe to support LM’s defense fund.
Yet, UnitedHealthcare is seeking justice following the fatal shooting of its CEO last week. The company released a statement on Monday, in which they said Mangione’s apprehension brought “some relief to Brian’s family, friends, colleagues and the many others affected by this unspeakable tragedy.”
The statement continued … “We thank law enforcement, and we will continue to work with them on this investigation. We ask that everyone respect the family’s privacy as they mourn.”
Lifestyle
The Eras era ends: A look back at Taylor Swift's record-breaking, 21-month tour
Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour came to a close Sunday night, capping off nearly two years of sparkly outfits, friendship bracelets and record-breaking sales.
The tour, an autobiographical journey through Swift’s extensive discography, started in Arizona in March 2023. Over the next 630-plus days, Swift performed 149 shows — each more than three hours long — in over 50 cities across five continents.
The show’s 10 acts span the distinct eras of Swift’s career, each defined with its own color scheme, costume and stage design, plus two ever-changing “surprise songs” during the acoustic portion of the night.
A steady stream of surprises, setlist changes and special guests held fans’ attention for the duration of the tour, with many tuning into livestreams and following dedicated fan accounts on social media.
And, of course, people watched in person.
Much has been written about “Swiftonomics,” or how the tour boosted local economies across the U.S. and around the world. Fans traveled hundreds or even thousands of miles, sometimes for more than one show, spending money on lodging, food and costumes along the way.
Their enthusiasm made history.
The tour set attendance records at scores of iconic stadiums, from Pittsburgh to São Paulo. Swift also set records for the most shows by a female artist at multiple venues, from Chicago to Mexico City to Lisbon to London — where she headlined a record eight shows at Wembley Stadium.
Eras set an all-time record when it grossed $1 billion last December — the first tour to ever cross the 10-digit threshold — according to the concert trade publication Pollstar. And that was with one year still to go.
This week, after her final shows in Vancouver, the singer’s production company confirmed the tour’s total ticket sales for the first time, telling the New York Times that it had brought in a whopping more than $2 billion.
That’s not including the secondary market of ticket sellers (remember when a botched Ticketmaster rollout prompted a Senate hearing and class-action lawsuit against the company?).
And it doesn’t account for other profits from the tour, including sales from merchandise ($200 million in 2023 alone) and tickets to Swift’s concert film, which became the highest-grossing concert film of all time (more than $261.6 million globally) after its October 2023 release. Swift also released a $40 coffee-table book with pictures and reflections from the tour in late November, which sold nearly 1 million copies in its first week.
On her final night onstage in Vancouver on Sunday, Swift described the tour as “the most thrilling chapter of my entire life to date” and credited her fans. Swifties started their own special set of Eras Tour traditions, like trading homemade friendship bracelets in the crowd and chanting and clapping at specific cues with archer-like precision.
“Making friends and bringing joy to each other, that is I think the lasting legacy of this tour, is the fact that you have created such a space of joy and togetherness and love. You’re why this is so special,” Swift said. “And you supporting me for as long as you have is why I get to take these lovely walks down memory every single night because you cared about every era of my entire life that I’ve been making music, so thank you.”
The Eras Tour by the numbers:
- Swift performed 149 shows between March 2023 and December 2024.
- The tour traveled to 51 cities across 21 countries.
- A typical Eras show featured 44-46 songs and ran for 3 hours and 15 minutes.
- Swift spent a total of roughly 25 hours performing her 10-minute version of “All Too Well.”
- A total of 10,168,008 people purchased $2,077,618,725 in tickets — averaging about $204 per seat, Swift’s company told the NYT.
- Eighteen opening acts warmed up the crowd for Swift, including Sabrina Carpenter, Paramore and Phoebe Bridgers. Fifteen special guests, mostly musicians, joined her onstage in occasional surprise appearances.
- Swift wore more than 60 outfits throughout the tour and more than 250 custom pairs of shoes by designer Christian Louboutin.
- Swift’s biggest crowd (of both the tour and her entire career) was 96,000 people at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Australia in February.
- In July 2023, Seattle fans danced so hard that they created the seismic equivalent of a 2.3 magnitude earthquake.
Meanwhile, during the tour:
- Swift was Spotify’s most-streamed artist for two years in a row, driving 26.6 billion global streams in 2024 alone.
- Time magazine named Swift its 2023 Person of the Year.
- Swift released three albums while on tour: She re-recorded “Taylor’s Version” of Speak Now and 1989 in 2023, and released The Tortured Poets Department in April 2024 (which also yielded four music videos).
- That’s in addition to her concert film, book and vinyl.
- Swift canceled her Vienna concerts after a terrorist plot to attack them was foiled, and postponed her second Brazil show due to heat after a fan died during the first one.
- Swift endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, driving more than 400,000 visitors to a voting registration website and prompting blowback from President-elect Donald Trump.
- The U.S. Department of Justice filed a civil antitrust suit against Live Nation Entertainment and its subsidiary, Ticketmaster, alleging it created a monopoly on live ticket event prices — a step that satisfied many disappointed Swifties.
- Swift stopped dating actor Joe Alwyn and started dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce (and attending his games, where she made “seemingly ranch” an overnight sensation). Swift somehow made it to Las Vegas from Tokyo overnight to see — and be seen — when the Chiefs won the 2023 Superbowl.
- Their very public relationship has won delighted fans, driven up female NFL viewership and stadium ticket prices and even inspired a Hallmark holiday movie.
What’s next?
- Some possible downtime for Swift, who will turn 35 on Dec. 13.
- Fans eagerly await her last two re-recorded albums: her self-titled 2006 debut, and 2017’s Reputation.
- The singer was nominated for six Grammys, including album, song and record of the year. The awards show is scheduled for Feb. 2.
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