Translational Research in Orthopedics

Guest speaker:
Andy Carr, FRCS, FMedSci
Professor of Orthopaedics
Nuttfield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences
University of Oxford

Host:  Jeff Karp, PhD
Associate Professor of Medicine
Brigham and Women's Hospital | Harvard Medical School

About the talk:
Prof. Carr will briefly outline the historical background of orthopaedic surgical research from its origins on the battlefield and in treating paedatric deformity to tissue engineering and cell therapies.  He will summarise methods used to evaluate the effectiveness of surgery and the regulatory environment for surgery, emphasizing how these have differed from other areas of medicine.  The talk will then focus on variations in surgical practice and what can be done to improve the evidence base for surgery.  Finally, Dr. Carr will outline highlights from the Oxford/NIHR research agenda going forward including details of projects to improve the volume and quality of trials, particularly those that involve new implants and cell therapies.

About Professor Carr:
Professor Andy Carr has been the Nuffield Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Oxford since 2001. Prior to this he spent 9 years as a full time consultant surgeon in the NHS. He is Head of the Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences, a Fellow of Worcester College and an honorary consultant surgeon at Oxford University Hospitals. In 2002 he founded and now directs the Botnar Research Centre. He has been director of the NIHR Musculoskeletal Biomedical Research Unit in Oxford from 2008 which focuses on translational research. Since 2001 the department has grown from 20 to 350 scientists, 4 to 84 DPhil students and now includes the Kennedy Institute for Rheumatology. He was a non-executive director of the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre (NOC) NHS Trust from 2001-2011 and a divisional director from 2011-13 when he led the NOC through it’s merger to become part of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust.

Prof Carr’s diverse research interests range from understanding the role of surgery in the treatment of bone and joint disorders to defining genetic susceptibility to osteoarthritis. He has pioneered the role of patients in assessing surgical outcomes and has led a number of National multicentre randomized trials of arthroscopic and joint replacement surgery. He has invented joint replacement implants and tissue repair scaffolds.