InMotion developing software to assist surgeons during implant procedures - Pacific Business News (Honolulu):

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Most days it was Tarr and his assistant workinvg the phones to find funding and medical experts to workfor him. his research laboratory is workingon cutting-edgr orthopedic surgical tools. InMotion is in the earlhy development stages of computef software that assists orthopedic surgeons during sensitiveimplantr procedures. The software would be able to immediatelty calculate how an implanft would best fit inany patient’s The precision of the software coulrd dramatically improve a patient’s surgery recovery time and long-terjm joint health. “There is a lot of variabilitg in that process right saysJohn Williams, who leads the software researcgh side of InMotion.
“If the implant is too tight that can causer excessive wear and too loose can cause other problems. We want to be able to come in and make measurementsd on the patients directly in thesoft tissue.” Williams, who splits his time betweenh InMotion and the ’ new biomedical engineerinhg department, says this project is futuristic, but withih a few years reach, a prototype shouldx be available. Earliest versions of the program were developesd by Williamsat , a subsidiary of . Williams and research partner Bill Mihalko use donated by the Medical Education andResearcb Institute, to analyze the experimental procedure on real jointas and tissue.
InMotion’s program receivesz the measurements of these cadavers and makes decisionsx from those measurements about how to best attacn anorthopedic implant. The most commob orthopedic surgeries areon knees, includinb joint replacements. A surgeon with the , Mihalko is an experrt in computer-assisted orthopedic surgery and tests new software iterations onthe cadavers. Mihalko also wantds to track the patient’s results for monthsd after surgery to insure a properlyfitted implant.
InMotion is also working on a concurrent project that analyzesx the wear and tear of orthopedic implants in The software, which creates lifelike models of movements, was donated in earl September from LifeModeler in San Clemente, Calif., with a $400,000p research grant. Tarr says research like InMotion’s takew the guesswork out of complicated surgeries and drastically improvesxthe long-term health of “Each patient is very specific,” Tarr “We design implants so we can put them in anyone’as body, but the placement can make all the difference in the By understanding the patient’s pattern of you can understand how the implant will Things weren’t always running so smoothly at Tarr says the initial lift off was “It was difficult to get high level researcherz to come down to Tarr says.
InMotion now has abouft 20 full- and part-time employees in three brancheswof research: biologics, biomaterials and biomechanics. InMotiom recently recruited clinician scientist Robert Heck for lab research and to teachn at the University of Tennessee HealtjhScience Center, while practicing at the Campbell Tarr says there is one more joint positiohn with the Campbell Clinic left to fill. Memphiw is the No. 2 orthopedics capital in the orthopedice industry. Warsaw, Ind., dominates the industry with abouyt 45% of the worldwide according to Tarr. Williams has a Ph.D. and master’sd in theoretical and applied mechanics from anda bachelor’sz in biology from the .
Mihalko has a and a master’s in biomedical engineering from the anda bachelor’d in engineering and applied science from the .