by Peter Rizzo, Manager of Positive Client Relations

TechSandBox (TSB) is a regional support network that promotes technology companies’ success in the Metro West region of Massachusetts. On May 2nd, TSB hosted WPI Robotics Professor, Gregory Fischer, and Head of Urology at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, Dr. Ingolf Tuerk, to present and discuss robotic technology applications in the medical device industry, specifically in robotic surgery. Dr. Tuerk’s presentation included video demonstrations of his own work with Intuitive Surgical’s da Vinci surgical robot, a system that helps provide minimally invasive surgical procedures with exceptional accuracy and decreased risk of complications. Dr. Tuerk has completed over 3500 procedures in his career with the da Vinci robot, and has achieved much better results using the device than by performing similar procedures by hand alone. His experience has contributed to the growing trend among surgeons to adopt innovative new technologies like the da Vinci Surgical Navigation System.

Professor Fischer’s presentation spoke to the innovative work being done at WPI to support the advancement of medical robotics. The da Vinci, among other medical robotics projects, received much of its technical development and support through Professor Fischer’s Automated Interventional Medicine (AIM) Laboratory at WPI. AIM Lab’s mission is to design and develop enabling technologies for medical robotics and robot-assisted surgery. The focus of the work is to enable “closed-loop medicine”, which effectively captures information during surgical procedures and shares it with doctors in real-time. With this laboratory in Cogmedix’s backyard, we are very excited to witness the next great advancements in this field.

Cogmedix provides medical device manufacturing for the kind of complex electromechanical medical devices that Professor Fischer and Dr. Tuerk presented. At 17 Briden Street in Worcester, Massachusetts, Cogmedix is proud to be neighbors with one of the world’s innovative contributors to medical robotics at WPI.