InMotion draws dream team to scientific advisory board

By Scott Shepard | Memphis Business Journal | Friday, April 14, 2006

Dick Tarr made a list of the 10 top orthopedic and regenerative medicine scientists in North America, his dream team for a scientific advisory board. All 10 agreed to participate on the first request.

Tarr is executive director of the InMotion Musculoskeletal Foundation, a start-up non-profit so new that it's just submitted its non-profit application to the IRS. The foundation grew out of a Batelle study commissioned by Memphis Tomorrow, which asked what the city needs to do to become a leader in biotechnology. Batelle highlighted the existing local strength in orthopedics and medical devices, recommending the creation of an organization that would focus on and promote it.

InMotion now has a full-time grant writer in the form of Chris Przybyszewski, and is renovating the seventh floor of the 20 S. Dudley building into offices with two full wet labs. Tarr has already begun promoting Memphis as the place where entrepreneurial clinical researchers can get in on the ground floor of a growing industry and have a role in shaping the future.

Two weeks ago he was in Chicago for the annual meeting of the Orthopaedic Research Society, immediately followed by the annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

"On the job boards there were plenty of physician postings, but almost nothing for clinical research," Tarr says.

The difference is that a clinical researcher combines the practice of medicine along with applied research, which is bringing new treatments to patients. Tarr wants to recruit two such people to bring their research to Memphis. He's targeting mid-career people who are prepared to lead their own labs.

"We have to sell the opportunity of growing this from the ground up," he says. "You can go into a big, existing program and do what they tell you to do, or you can come to Memphis and be the big fish."

Amenities like virgin lab space and a grant writer are intended to sweeten the pitch because they provide the overhead that scientists would rather not have as a distraction. The new board of directors connects research centers and businesses to provide a total support system.

Tarr has a list of 50 candidates he's working, with the goal of scoring at least one in the next six months.

While metal implants continue to dominate the orthopedic industry of today, the focus of the convention in Chicago was regenerative medicine, learning how to compel the cells of the body to regenerate worn out cartilage and aging bone.

The members of Tarr's scientific board are all leaders of regenerative medicine. Tarr was recruited to InMotion, in part, because of his 30 years in the industry.

"Dick is very well respected within the industry; what he's done is call in some chits," says physician and veterinarian Stephen Badylak. "This is a terrific opportunity for Memphis to take a leadership role in regenerative orthopedics."

Badylak is a research professor and director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, and a member of the InMotion advisory board. The McGowan Institute has several academic centers and businesses involved; Badylak hopes to encourage the same dynamic in Memphis.

"There is an incredible opportunity to cross fertilize if the parties are willing to break down the barriers," he says.

Another member of the advisory board, Robert Nerem, is creating a similar organization at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. Nerem's specialty is tissue engineering.

Locally, Tarr tapped rheumatologist Andrew Kang, director of the UT Centers of Excellence for Disease of Connective Tissue. Kang's team uncovered an immune response of the digestive system -- cells that allow the body to digest certain proteins also wander off and attack cartilage, with crippling results in the form of arthritis.

"Dr. Kang is a local treasure; any institute in the nation would be grateful to have him," Tarr says.

The struggle at McGowan, and likely in Memphis, will be in sharing information, Badylak says. Good ideas come from collaboration, but it can get sticky when two scientists both claim the same idea and grants are on the line. It becomes a legal quagmire when private companies seek to patent the same concept. The solution is having good rules of engagement on the front end, plus a willingness to share the fruit of collaboration.

"People are always concerned if they give something, what will they get in return?" Badylak says.

Along with two clinical scientists, Tarr has a third job he'd like to fill: a biomechanics instructor with expertise in structural mechanics for the University of Memphis. He wants someone ready to teach this fall, do research at InMotion and be willing to collaborate all over town.

"Everyone I talk to here needs biomechanical support," he says. "It's core technology for orthopedics, assessing loads and structural strength."