The Startup Trying To Freeze Your Youth

In the basement of Toronto General Hospital, a man who calls himself the Mother Plucker pulled hair out of my head a few strands at a time. He was hunting for a tiny bulb of living tissue at the root, and apparently I’m rather bulb-less, among my many other issues.

This innovative torture was courtesy of Acorn Biolabs, a Canadian biotech startup that uses patients’ own stem cells for experimental treatments. Each bulb holds skin cells, connective tissue cells and a small supply of adult stem cells. Acorn grows those cells in the lab and collects what they secrete, aptly named the secretome. Then it goes back to you as a topical product for skin, hair and scars.