InMotion, U of M to share

By Daniel Connolly | Commercial Appeal | Friday, March 23, 2007

Donated scientific equipment worth about $200,000 has made its way from a medical device maker in Warsaw, Ind., to a laboratory at the University of Memphis.

DePuy Orthopaedics, a division of New Jersey-based Johnson & Johnson, recently gave the InMotion Musculoskeletal Institute several machines used for automatic preparation of microscope slides of tissue samples.

InMotion, a nonprofit Memphis-based research lab that studies diseases and injuries of joints and bones, passed the gear along to the University of Memphis Integrated Microscopy Center.

InMotion and the university have agreed that both organizations can use the equipment, which is designed for histology, the study of tissues.

"It will increase our capability to train students and to prepare samples for research histology in the community," said Sharon Frase, associate director of the microscopy center.

Dick Tarr, InMotion's president and executive director, said he was working for DePuy in Indiana when he bought the equipment. He retired from the firm in 2005 and moved to Memphis to start InMotion.

When a former co-worker told him that DePuy was consolidating operations and shutting down one of the laboratories, Tarr began negotiating with the firm to get the equipment.

Tarr said InMotion's decision to pass along the equipment to the University of Memphis helps fulfill one of the institute's main goals: working closely with various organizations to promote orthopedic research.

"We could have kept it and tried to do it ourselves, but this is critical to make these partnerships work," he said.

Orthopedic research often involves experiments on rodents and larger animals such as pigs, Tarr said. Such experiments usually require that researchers take a close-up look at bone, cartilage or other tissues to measure the effect of a treatment.

Tarr said the donated equipment automatically cuts the tissue into thin slices, stains it and embeds it in paraffin, producing microscope slides ready for a specialist to review.

InMotion Musculoskeletal Institute

The nonprofit research lab was formed in 2005 and works to promote orthopedic science through collaboration with numerous private and public entities.

Employees: 12

President and executive director: Dick Tarr

Address: 20 S. Dudley, Suite 700

Web site: http://www.inmotionmemphis.org