ASU Recruits World-Class Scientist To Direct Strategic And Industrial Alliances For The Biodesign Institute

Kimberly Ovitt, Director of Communication & Institutional Advancement
(480)727-8688 | kimberly.ovitt@asu.edu
October 20, 2005

TEMPE, Ariz. - A top executive from SRI International (formerly Stanford Research Institute) has been appointed to the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University as director of strategy and research alliances. Michael Tracy will lead strategic initiatives between the Biodesign Institute and a variety of health care, industrial and governmental organizations. He will also serve as scientific director of the Center for Cancer Research, one of 12 research centers comprising the Biodesign Institute.

"Dr. Tracy has a proven track record in developing drugs and diagnostics and successfully seeing these to market," said George Poste, director of the Biodesign Institute. "His past successes are the result of understanding the challenge of translational analysis to link the work of research teams with the right clinical and industrial partners. We are extremely fortunate to be able to tap this expertise, particularly in the important areas of cancer and infectious disease," Poste said.

The institute currently has eight clinical and over a dozen industrial partnerships. Local clinical partnerships include Mayo Clinic Scottsdale, Barrow Neurological Institute, Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center, Sun Health Research Institute, Scottsdale Healthcare, Carl T. Hayden VA Medical Center and Phoenix Indian Medical Center.

With 27 years of experience encompassing both research and management roles, Tracy spent most of his career with SRI International, an independent, non-profit research institute conducting contract research and development for government agencies, commercial businesses, foundations, and other organizations. For six years, he served as vice president of the organization‘s pharmaceutical discovery division. One of his team‘s anticancer drugs has reached the market, while four others are currently in clinical trials.

Tracy most recently served as the SRI‘s vice president of corporate business development in biotechnology. He co-founded two biotechnology spin-outs from the organization and initiated multiple license deals between SRI and the pharmaceutical industry. Meanwhile, he established SRI‘s Bio-X Strategic Initiative with George Poste, who at the time was chief science and technology officer with SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals and is now the director of the Biodesign Institute. The Bio-X Initiative was one of the first comprehensive programs aimed at encouraging multidisciplinary projects in bioengineering, biodefense and bioinformatics.

"In developing therapies to diagnose and treat people with cancer, I found that our greatest advances came when scientists from different fields worked together," said Tracy. "I became an avid advocate for multi-disciplinary research. This led me to work with George Poste in a former role and was a major factor in my decision to join ASU. Poste has an unmatched ability to see connections where others don‘t, and that is evident in the ground-breaking approach being taken by the Biodesign Institute."

Tracy‘s scientific training was in organic chemistry (D. Phil, Oxford University, UK). He has extensive experience in the design; synthesis and preclinical evaluation of cancer therapeutics and cancer diagnostics. He holds 20 patents and is a member of the American Chemical Society and American Association of Cancer Research. He moved to Arizona in July from Menlo Park, Calif. and is a resident of Scottsdale, Ariz.