Inventor Turned Entreprenuer

Part I: Royster Fellowship helps Timm Crowder connect the worlds of science and business

Royster Dissertation Fellow Timm Crowder has always been a tinkerer of sorts. When he was a young boy growing up in Kingsport, Tennessee, he had a knack for taking things apart and putting them back together again. Although he was sometimes left holding a random piece or two, Timm was always encouraged to be self-reliant and explore new things. He recalls: "In 5^th grade I had a teacher who just gave me a math book and said ‘see how far you can get in this book’ and that was a challenge to me." Timm has come a long way since those days, but his childhood fascination with the world around him is still a driving force behind his endeavors.

Photo by Will Owens

Today, Crowder is doing important work in the field of Biomedical Engineering. After earning his M.A. in Physics at North Carolina State in 1995, Timm’s general interest in science became more clearly defined: "I realized that I have that engineering bent where I really need an application to what I’m doing, and I didn’t see that happening in physics…and particularly not at the Ph.D. level." Because of his attraction to applied science, Crowder decided to work for The Semiconductor Research Corporation in RTP. It was there that he realized what he truly wanted to do. "I would sit down with my boss on Friday afternoons and just start talking about how we could apply this technology that was being developed in semiconductors to medicine, just sort of brainstorming and coming up with hair-brained ideas. It was those conversations that got me excited about biomedical engineering."

Following his new interest, Timm decided to pursue a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering. When he arrived at Carolina in 1996, Timm channeled his enthusiasm into an area that he felt had the potential for immediate application: drug delivery technology.

Crowder’s current research seeks to improve the dry powder inhaler (DPI) as a mechanism for drug delivery. Currently, as Timm points out, most inhalers have certain drawbacks: many use potentially harmful chlorofluorocarbons and are not always successful in delivering accurate dosages to users. Timm feels that DPI’s can surmount these problems and become viable alternatives in the delivery of drug dosages. However, there are still some challenges that he faces: "The problem with dry powder inhalers is poor performance in terms of how much of the drug that is in the inhaler actually gets to the patient. Ten percent is considered pretty good, while thirty percent would be outstanding. The other problem with DPI’s is that they don’t have any sort of active mechanism that gets the powder to the patient. Instead, they rely on the patient’s breathing through the inhaler to actually get the powder out of whatever it is contained in and into the lungs. If you’re having an asthma attack, and you are required to breathe really hard, you are going to have a problem getting the drugs into your lungs."

Crowder aims to surmount these problems by increasing the efficiency of the DPI and making it less dependent of the patient’s respiratory capabilities.

That Timm’s research is rapidly taking shape is due in no small part to his Royster Fellowship. Without it, he would either have had to apply for funding from a drug delivery company or done extra research on campus. "If I didn’t have the fellowship, I would have to work on funded research projects not directly related to my research, which would definitely hinder me from finishing my Ph.D. research. The fellowship gives me financial freedom to focus on my dissertation research full-time."

But the completion of his dissertation is only the first step in the application process that Timm envisions. "The goal is definitely to patent it and certainly to protect both Carolina’s and my own interest in the technology. What I’m hoping to do is start a company to take this one step further and actually turn it into a marketable device." But even in this new phase, Crowder and Carolina will continue their mutually beneficial relationship: "The University has a policy that it will license out technology developed here to companies that were started by people from Carolina. When I start my business, the school will be about a 25% owner in the company because the technology was developed here." Because of the resources of the RTP area and the fact that his present advisor will be active in the business, Crowder plans on remaining in the area. It seems that he will now enrich the area that first nurtured his own fledgling interests in applied science.

Timm believes that the ability to work with faculty from many departments within the University has contributed to the accomplishment of his goals. "I wasn’t limited to just working with a professor that was a Biomedical Engineering faculty member or on a project that was blessed by the Biomedical Engineering department. I actually went out (to the School of Pharmacy), found the professor I wanted to work with, and designed the research project that I envisioned, and was able to do that." The flexibility that Timm found is not uncommon in Biomedical Engineering, where students work closely with the Schools of Dentistry, Orthopedics, and Medical Imaging. Timm has also taken a class at the Business School to help prepare him to get his DPI business off the ground. In the final analysis, Timm feels that his graduate experience at Carolina was special because many graduate programs and faculty accommodated and supported his multifaceted interests. "It has given me the ability to pull all those things – engineering, business, and science – together that have been sort of nascent ever since I was a kid. Now they have finally come together."

- John Adrian

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