CISST

The Engineering Research Center for Computer-Integrated Surgical Systems and Technology (CISST) was founded in 1998 with seed funding from NSF within the LCSR under the directorate of Professor Russel H. Taylor. The mission of the ERC is to

• Reduce surgical costs substantially
• Improve clinical outcomes
  
• Make healthcare delivery more efficient

The CISST has several research programs organized along three main threads: modeling and analysis of patient and surgical procedures, interface technology connecting the virtual reality and actual reality and system science. This includes surgical CAD/CAM, surgical assistance systems and infrastructures. To make team and project work more effective a new building was built in 2007 to accommodate scientists and engineers of the different fields. To fit into the landscape of the other buildings they imported the 2500 marble stones (for decoration) from Italy. There is a big lab (app. 500m2) called the ''Robotorium" in the basement of the Computational Science and Engineering Building where several robots are installed and 10 lab pods serve the 20-30 students and visiting researchers.