Electric Comb Restored Nearly Full Hair Coverage in Mice Within 28 Days

An experimental comb-like device restored hair coverage across almost all of a treated patch on mice within 28 days, outperforming daily topical minoxidil, which returned roughly 70 percent of coverage over the same period. The device, called Detangle, has been tested only in mice; human scalps have not yet been involved. The work, led by scientists at Beihang University in China, was published in Nature Communications.

What does the device actually do?

Detangle targets androgenetic alopecia, the progressive pattern of hair loss that affects both men and women. In susceptible follicles, the hormone dihydrotestosterone (DHT) gradually shrinks hair growth, so each cycle produces finer, shorter hairs.

Topical treatments can slow this process, but delivering therapeutic molecules through the skin remains difficult. Oral medications avoid the skin barrier but expose other tissues to unwanted effects.

Detangle pursues the safer delivery-from-above route. The device carries an alternating series of electrodes and reservoirs that dispense therapeutic molecules through a mechanism resembling a ballpoint pen. Positioned at different heights, the electrodes force the skin to furrow while delivering charged pulses that help move the drug into deeper tissue and inside cells. The electrical stimulation itself also activates pathways involved in hair growth — a dual mechanism that separates this work from conventional topical dosing.

What was loaded into the reservoirs?

The researchers filled the pen-like reservoirs with two complementary genetic treatments:

• A small ring of DNA carrying instructions for a protein that promotes blood vessel formation (a plasmid, in gene-delivery terms).
• A short segment of RNA that interfered with production of an enzyme involved in DHT synthesis (RNA interference, which silences a chosen gene's output).

The combination addresses both the hormonal driver of follicle shrinkage and the local blood supply that follicles depend on.

How strong is the evidence?

The experiment used male mice whose back fur had been removed; daily testosterone applications created an animal model of androgen-related hair loss. The team applied Detangle every three days. By day 28, hair coverage had returned close to fully, versus roughly 70 percent in mice receiving a daily topical minoxidil dose.

Tissue analyses confirmed notable improvements in follicle activity and local circulation. These are measured results in one mouse model, not projections validated in humans. Safety signals in the small animal cohort were reassuring, but three questions remain open: human tolerability, whether benefits persist, and what repeated treatment would demand of patients.

Where does this fit in hair-loss research?

Detangle is not the only recent advance. Earlier this year, Japanese researchers grew fully functional hair follicles in the laboratory for the first time using mouse experiments. That hair cycled through typical growth periods, giving researchers a new tool for clinically assessing hair loss therapies without relying on mice.

The clinical stakes extend beyond appearance. A meta-analysis published last year associated pattern hair loss with greater depressive symptoms, social anxiety and stress. Separately, the 2025 Alopecia + Me study linked stigma and perceptions of illness with psychological burden in alopecia areata, a distinct autoimmune form of hair loss. Neither finding suggests hair is a prerequisite for wellbeing, but both explain why effective treatments matter to patients beyond vanity.

The device's name reportedly derives from Disney's Tangled. Rapunzel-level results remain in fairy-tale territory, but for R&D managers tracking transdermal gene delivery, the comb's electroporation-adjacent mechanism and its measured win over minoxidil in mice mark a platform worth watching as it moves toward human testing.