No matter how great a surgeon is, robotic assistance can bring a higher level of precision to the operating table. The ability to remotely operate a robot that can hold precision instruments greatly increases the accuracy of surgical procedures like thoracoscopic surgery, which is used to treat lung cancer.

Intuitive Surgical offers funding for technology research grants for projects in 2016. Researchers at non-profit institutions world wide can apply. LOIs can be submitted until June 5.

In this episode Ron Vanderkley speaks to Prof. Karol Miller, Director of the Intelligent Systems for Medicine Lab at the University of Western Australia, about medical robotics and how doctors and patients perceive its role and use. Central to his work are mathematical models of soft tissue (brain, liver, etc.) that can be used for robot-assisted surgery by providing fast and accurate feedback.

Titan Medical, a publicly-traded Canadian start-up company developing a robotic surgical system for minimally-invasive surgeries, announced the completion of two rounds of public offering totally $34.8 million.

An international leader in the field of robotics and automation, Toshio Fukuda is best known for his pioneering work on micro robotics systems — including microsensors and micro actuators — and his medical intravascular microsurgery simulator has found commercial use. We caught up with Prof. Fukuda following the 2013 IROS conference in Tokyo, which Fukuda co-founded in 1988, to ask him about his groundbreaking work and the role of robotics in medicine.

Unlike larger robots, microrobots for applications in the body are too small to carry batteries and motors. To address this challenge, we power and control robots made of magnetic materials using external magnetic fields. Developed at ETH Zurich’s  Multi-Scale Robotics Lab (MSRL), the OctoMag is a magnetic manipulation system that uses electromagnetic coils to wirelessly guide microrobots for ophthalmic surgery. 

Many surgeries today are performed as open, invasive procedures because surgeons lack the right tools. Our goal is to create the technology that will enable converting these open procedures to minimally invasive ones.

– Dr. Pierre Dupont, Chief of Pediatric Cardiac Bioengineering at Children’s Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School.

On February 1st of this year, Catherine Mohr, Director of Medical Research and chief spokesperson for Intuitive Surgical (ISRG:NASDAQ), gave a talk on the campus of CMU. (Video of talk and Q&A).

I watched the video wherein Mohr pointed out that most of the new robotic-assisted surgical procedures, including those provided by her company’s da Vinci Surgical System, are simply improved versions of surgeries that have long been done through open or laparoscopic access — and that’s not disruptive.