In the operating rooms of the future, surgeons won't touch patients. At least that's the scenario a team of UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco engineers and physicians envision with the use of a robotic surgery system.
Here's how it works: After an incision is made in the patient, a microrobot is inserted. Human surgeons control the mechanical doc via remote control. With use of video and haptic devices, surgeons can see and "feel" the body as they operate.
Project head S. Shankar Sastry plans to rigorously test the technology for several years before seeking FDA approval. "Safety is a big concern," says Joel Burdick at the California Institute of Technology. "No one has a definition of software in the medical context, or how to design safe software." Even with these problems to overcome, Sastry says, venture capitalists are already lining up at the door.
This article originally appeared in the August issue of Wired magazine.
