#1 HairSite: It has been over a year since you joined Bosley Medical. Can you tell us how you feel being the Chief Medical Officer for the largest hair transplantation practice in the world? Are you happy with your career decision to leave NYU?

Dr. Washenik: I am very happy with my career decision. I still maintain my academic ties with NYU so from a clinical standpoint as well as the research and academic standpoint, this has been a win-win situation for me. Bosley Medical gives me the ability to effect change in the hair industry much quicker. In less than two years, we have put together Aderans Research Institute, opened two research facilities in the U.S and assembled a team of highly respected scientists who are working full time on the next breakthrough in hair restoration. It would be difficult to accomplish all that just based on grant money alone from the university. Aderans is truly a large corporation whose core competence is all about hair. I would not have been able to make such an impact on the industry in such a short period of time had I not joined Bosley Medical. I am very thrilled with my experience.

#2 HairSite: You mentioned your academic affiliation with NYU, so what are some of the projects are you currently working on?

Dr. Washenik: Individual projects are still under confidentiality arrangement. But to give you an idea of the broad categories, one area is the use of biologics or immune response modifiers that have been recently approved by the FDA for psoriasis as a possible treatment for alopecia areata. Alopecia areata is an area that I am very passionate about and I hope that with the help of the National Alopecia Areata Foundation and my academic ties with NYU, we will make some progress for alopecia areata patients soon.
  

#3 HairSite: What is the official name for this new hair restoration technique that Aderans Research Institute is currently researching? Do you call it "Hair Multiplication", "Hair Cloning" or something else?

Dr. Washenik: People sometimes refer to the technique as hair multiplication or hair cloning. Technically, we call it follicular neogeneis, or hair follicle neogenesis. But "neogenesis" is such a tiresome word that we usually end up calling the technique hair multiplication or hair cloning. Bear in mind that hair cloning is a misnomer because in reality there are no fetal stem cells or embryonic tissues being used. We are not trying to grow hairs in the lab and put them in the scalp. When some people hear hair cloning, they think there is a dishful of individual hairs already formed in the lab and ready to be used on the scalp. That is not the case here. What we are trying to do is to generate what I call "hair seeds" and then plant them into the scalp to grow new hair.
  

#4 HairSite: It appears that Aderans Research Institute (ARI) has two groups, one in Atlanta and the other in Philadelphia. Can you tell us what each of the two groups is responsible for?

Dr. Washenik: The two groups within ARI focus on different areas of the same research - tissue engineered hair growth. In its simplest form, we have a research group in Philadelphia and a development group in Atlanta.

Our Philadelphia lab focuses on hair follicle molecular biology and cell biology. Philadelphia is a logical choice because with University of Pennsylvania, Jefferson and other institutions, there is already a strong hair biology culture in the region. Dr. Kurt Stenn is in charge of the Philadelphia group and the Chief Scientific Officer of ARI.

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