Regenerative medicine · Hair loss
dNovo
A Stanford trained biologist's direct reprogramming system once grew human hair on the backs of lab mice. Four years after its public debut, dNovo is listed as inactive, and its founder has moved on to a harder problem.
A mouse with a patch of human hair
The photograph that introduced dNovo to the world shows a laboratory mouse, seven months after a procedure, with a thick dark clump of hair growing from a strip of skin on its back. The hair is not the mouse's own. According to the company, it grew from human hair stem cells that dNovo says it manufactured by reprogramming ordinary skin cells, without ever pushing them through the embryonic like state that most stem cell methods require. The image ran with a January 2022 press release and was picked up by MIT Technology Review, BioSpace, New Atlas and a cluster of hair loss forums within days.
The problem dNovo said it would solve
Everyone is born with a fixed number of hair follicles, and each follicle depends on a small reservoir of stem cells to keep producing hair. As people age, or in conditions such as male pattern baldness, those stem cells die off, go dormant or otherwise stop working, and once they are gone the follicle stops making hair. Existing treatments, from minoxidil and finasteride to surgical transplants, either slow the loss of existing hair or move hair from one part of the scalp to another. None of them make new hair stem cells. dNovo's pitch was that its reprogramming system could replace what was lost rather than redistribute what remained, which is the same premise behind competitors such as Stemson Therapeutics and Pelage Pharmaceuticals.
From a Stanford lab to a Silicon Valley pitch
Dr. Ernesto Lujan earned his PhD in genetics at Stanford, where he was first author on a 2012 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, working in Marius Wernig's lab, that converted mouse skin cells directly into neural precursor cells without passing through a pluripotent stem cell stage. Stanford's own announcement of that paper credited the National Institutes of Health and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine among its funders and quoted Lujan describing the technique's advantages over induced pluripotent stem cells. He told Follicle Thought in 2022 that he first became interested in reprogramming during that PhD, and that the idea for a company did not take shape until 2018, during a postdoctoral stint at Harvard, when he went looking for an unsolved problem that direct reprogramming might fit. Hair loss, he said, was underserved by treatments that slow the problem instead of reversing it. dNovo went through a Y Combinator batch in 2018 and then, in the company's own words, stayed in stealth for several years while it developed the underlying science.
Stealth, a splash, then quiet
By dNovo's own account, the company generated human hair stem cells in 2019, transplanted reprogrammed cells onto mice at the end of 2020, and had generated human dermal papilla cells by the second quarter of 2021. None of that reached the public until January 2022, when dNovo emerged from stealth with the mouse photograph, a $2.7 million seed round, and a run of press coverage that included MIT Technology Review, Fortune, BioSpace, New Atlas and FirstWord Pharma. A German television segment, translated and posted by Follicle Thought, showed Lujan describing a two step process: turning skin cells into hair stem cells, then implanting them into a strip of mouse skin. Lujan told the outlet the team was, in his words, happy with where things stood. That was the last substantial update found. Follicle Thought's own tracker of hair loss pipelines, last refreshed in November 2024, records the January 2022 announcement and nothing after it. Y Combinator's company page now lists dNovo's status as inactive, and Ernesto Lujan's LinkedIn profile lists him as chief scientific officer and a co-founder of Kangaroo Biomedical, a separate San Francisco startup working on artificial placenta and artificial womb technology that he started with CEO Landice Gao in 2023.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| Founder's prior science | Ernesto Lujan was first author on a 2012 PNAS paper converting mouse skin cells into neural precursor cells in Marius Wernig's Stanford lab. That is real, published, peer reviewed work, but it is about neural cells, not hair. | Public record |
| Hair specific results | The mouse hair growth shown in the January 2022 release has not been published in a peer reviewed journal, so far as this research found. The evidence is a company photograph and company statements. | Company stated |
| Regulatory record | No FDA 510(k), PMA filing or registered clinical trial for dNovo was found in FDA or ClinicalTrials.gov records. | Gap |
| Patent | Company materials and the Y Combinator listing describe the reprogramming method as patent pending. No granted US patent under dNovo or Ernesto Lujan for a hair application was identified in this search. | Gap |
| Funding | $2.7 million seed announced January 24, 2022, repeated by BioSpace, New Atlas and the research aggregator Tracxn. No SEC Form D filed under dNovo Inc was found on EDGAR. | Company stated |
| Current status | Y Combinator's company page lists dNovo as inactive. A hair loss pipeline tracker found no update on dNovo after January 2022 as of November 2024. Founder Ernesto Lujan is now chief scientific officer of Kangaroo Biomedical, a different company. | Independent |
The pattern here is a company that showed something striking once, in a single coordinated press push, and then stopped talking. The founder's earlier academic credentials are real and checkable. The specific hair result is not independently verified, because it was never published, only photographed and described. And every independent thread, from the Y Combinator listing to the founder's own LinkedIn, points to a company that quietly stopped operating rather than one that shut down with an announcement.
What to watch
- Whether dNovo's patent application, if one exists, ever publishes or is assigned to another entity.
- Any peer reviewed paper describing the hair stem cell reprogramming work specifically, as opposed to Lujan's earlier neural cell research.
- Whether Ernesto Lujan's current company, Kangaroo Biomedical, absorbs any of dNovo's technology or team.
- Whether a competitor such as Stemson Therapeutics or Pelage Pharmaceuticals, both still active in reprogrammed hair therapy, reaches human trials first.
In their words
“We are excited to showcase our direct reprogramming system and the potential for our technology to address the underlying cause of hair loss.”
Dr. Ernesto Lujan, founder and CEO, company release, 2022 · Company
“Hair loss is one of the medical challenges that affects millions of people every year, but most current solutions only focus on slowing down hair loss.”
Niki Pezeshki, General Partner, Felicis Ventures, company release, 2022 · Company
“We see dNovo at the forefront of innovation with their quest to address the age-old and pervasive problem of hair loss.”
Nikhita Jaaswal, Investor, Soma Capital, company release, 2022 · Company
“I first became interested in reprogramming during my PhD at Stanford a little over 10 years ago.”
Ernesto Lujan, to Follicle Thought, 2022 · Independent
“We are currently in the preclinical stage of development. We have shown the results in laboratory mice and are very excited with those.”
Ernesto Lujan, to Fortune, 2022, as quoted by Hair Loss Cure 2020 · Independent
“I think people will go pretty far to get their hair back. But at first it will be a bespoke process and very costly.”
Karl Koehler, professor, Harvard University, to MIT Technology Review, 2022 · Independent
“Our method allows us to turn skin cells into hair stem cells. We then implanted these cells into a mouse.”
Ernesto Lujan, German television interview, translated and posted by Follicle Thought, 2022 · Independent
Related companies
Sources
- CompanydNovo Emerges From Stealth With Its Potential Cure for Hair Loss
- IndependentdNovo Emerges From Stealth With Its Potential Cure for Hair Loss
- IndependentGoing bald? Lab-grown hair cells could be on the way
- IndependentdNovo's novel baldness treatment takes a direct route to hair regrowth
- IndependentdNovo: Biological Reprogramming For Hair Regeneration
- IndependentInterview With Ernesto Lujan PhD Of dNovo: Reprogramming Hair Stem Cells
- IndependentdNovo: De Novo Hair Regeneration, including status update
- Public recordScientists turn skin cells into neural precursors, bypassing stem-cell stage
- Public recordDirect conversion of mouse fibroblasts to self-renewing, tripotent neural precursor cells
- IndependentdNovo company profile and funding summary
- DirectorydNovo: The cure for hair loss
- IndependentKangaroo Biomedical Wants to Build an Artificial Womb for Humans
- IndependentAndrogenetic Alopecia Therapies Master List, dNovo entry
- CompanydNovo Home, company site
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
