Emil Aliev has thick, dark hair. He intentionally wears it shorter on the sides – for the undercut. The fact that the Cologne native founded Niostem 2021, a start-up to combat hair loss, is surprising at first glance. His co-founder Carlos Chacón-Martinez, cell biologist and inventor of a technological process designed to reactivate hair stem cells, wears his long mat in a ponytail.
Their product, a wearable device that looks like headphones, could help millions of people affected. To do this, electrodes built into the device, which protrude as short spikes, send mechanical signals to so-called follicles. These vesicular structures surround the hair root and drive hair growth. In a pilot study with 22 male volunteers who wore the wearable for 30 minutes a day, it was shown after six months that all participants were growing new hair and no longer falling out.
Founder Chacón-Martinez discovered the method during his research work at the Max Planck Institute. There, the native Colombian actually wanted to find out why hair stem cells sometimes convert into skin cancer cells. “Hair follicles are the growth engine for hair and skin,” says the scientist. “The basic idea was to understand why hair stem cells go bad and to find a way to block or reverse the process.”