Updates from the MIRO Innovation Lab
Since last year, the MIRO Innovation Lab has grown significantly, and now it offers partnership across Academia and Industry:
"We are a modern research platform and versatile collaborative network for medical robotics.
Medical robotics is a strong growth market: from diagnosis to
therapy, robotic assistance systems are already in use in many medical
fields. The rise in robotic applications will lead to gentler treatments
for patients and a considerable ease on clinicians in future. This is
where the MIRO Innovation Lab comes in. Our aim is to apply innovation
in practice more quickly by working closely with partners from industry,
clinics and other research institutions.
At the MIRO Innovation Lab we work closely with clinics, industrial companies and other research institutions. Alongside specific collaborations, we maintain a national and international network in order to promote discussion on scientific and practical issues as well as future robotic technologies in medicine."
"In order to make use of the many advantages that waterjet surgery
offers and to reinforce these, scientists of the MIRO Innovation Lab of
the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics of the German Aerospace
Center (DLR) have developed a robotic method based on the MIRO
technology.
For this purpose an endoscopic waterjet probe was integrated onto the
MICA robot, which serves as the development platform for medical
instruments and is linked to the MIRO robot. To test the clinical
potential of this novel technology the developers have now carried out a
systematic evaluation in collaboration with the University hospital
Freiburg – a corporation started in 2016. The scientific findings of
this project were published on the international scientific
online-journal PLOS ONE in September 2018.
The paper describes the most important results and methods of the
procedure. The significant advantage of waterjet surgery is tissue
selectivity. The required amount of water pressure for ablation of
tissue that is damaged or devitalized is a lot lower compared to that
needed for healthy tissue. This way water pressure can be used as means
to limit the ablation to solely damaged or devitalized tissue. In
addition, the application of robots showed a consistent high coverage
rate of the target area. As a result, the danger of reinfection would be
reduced and the healing process could be accelerated.
Another advantage that this technological approach has over
conventional methods is the spatial separation of the doctor and the
patient: The doctor can keep his distance from the pathogens and debris
that the waterjet disperses into the air during surgery, and thus the
risk of cross-infections would be reduced."
They recently held a Symposium together with MedTech Pharma at the DLR location Oberpfaffenhofen.
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