Lab News
Two Patents Awarded for MED Lab Inventions
Two patents have been awarded for MED Lab inventions. The first patent is for a snare tool manipulator system, and the second patent is for a bronchoscopic continuum robot system for transoral lung access. Congratulations to the inventors!
EndoTheia Moves into New Office
EndoTheia, Inc., a startup company from the MED Lab, has begun formal operations and moved into a new office space near downtown Nashville! Equipped with new laser cutters and 3D printers, they are ready to start commercializing steerable sheaths for flexible endoscopy.
Tayfun Ertop selected as Best Student Paper Finalist at DSCC 2020
Congratulations to graduate student Tayfun Efe Ertop and team for being selected as a Best Student Paper Finalist at the 2020 Dynamic Systems and Controls Conference! Tayfun's paper is titled "Steerable Needle Trajectory Following in the Lung: Torsional Deadband Compensation and Full Pose Estimation with 5DOF Feedback for Needles Passing Through Flexible Endoscopes." He presented his work virtually and was chosen as a finalist from approximately 200 other papers!
Virtuoso Surgical Raises 1.5 Million through Regulation Offering
Virtuoso Surgical, a startup company from the MED Lab, where many former lab members work, has raised $1.5 Million over the past few months (and counting!) through a Regulation A+ offering of shares to the general public. The funding will support the company’s ongoing work to bring concentric tube robots to operating rooms around the world!
Dr. Webster's Entrepreneurship Class Resumes for 3rd Year
Dr. Webster started his 3rd year of teaching the class "Innovation Realization: From Academic Insight to Entrepreneurial Impact." The class combines teams of engineering Ph.D. students, law students, and MBA students to work on developing research ideas into products with a business plan!
MED Lab Welcomes New Student!
Jason Shrand joined the MED Lab this summer. He is pursuing a PhD in Mechanical Engineering. Welcome, Jason!
EndoTheia Receives Phase II SBIR
EndoTheia, Inc., a startup company from the MED Lab, was awarded a $1.2M Phase II SBIR grant from the NIH to develop a steerable medical device for endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP). This device seeks to eliminate the need for duodenoscopes that are difficult to sterilize and have high infection rates.
Dr. Gafford Finishes Postdoc
Dr. Joshua Gafford finished his postdoc in MED Lab and is now the Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of EndoTheia. EndoTheia is a startup company that Dr. Webster co-founded with Dr. Gafford in 2018 to commercialize technology originally invented in the MED Lab.
First Human Study for the da Vinci Surgical GPS System
The MED Lab's image guidance team has just completed the first in-human trial of our Surgical GPS system for the da Vinci Robot. Congrats, team!
Patrick Wellborn Defends PhD Dissertation
MED Lab student Patrick Wellborn successfully defended his PhD dissertation, titled "Human-Robot Collaborative Mastoidectomy: Combining Human Path Adaptation with Robotic Accuracy." Congrats, Dr. Wellborn!
MED Lab Return to Campus
As of May 19, MED Lab personnel are approved to come back to campus!
Virtuoso Surgical Raises 2.5 Million in Angel Funding
Virtuoso Surgical, a startup company from the MED Lab, where many former lab members work, successfully raised $2.5 Million in angel funding this month! The funding will support the company’s ongoing work to bring concentric tube robots to operating rooms around the world.
MED Lab Open Source Ventilator
The MED Lab is working on an open-source ventillator concept to be used in emergency situations created by the COVID-19 pandemic. The latest news and details on the project can be found here: https://lab.vanderbilt.edu/medlab/.
Trevor Bruns Defends
Trevor successfully defends his thesis entitled, "Design of Surgical Robotic Systems for Skull Base Interventions." Congratulations, Dr. Bruns!
New Surgical Tool Clinical Trial
Image-guided, minimally invasive cochlear implant clinical trials are back under way at Vanderbilt! The new manual insertion tool developed by the MED Lab and CAOS Lab was used for the first time in a very successful first clinical case!
NSF EFRI Awarded
Congratulations to Dr. Webster and his collaborators (Dr. Eric Barth, Dr. Kevin Galloway, Dr. Caleb Rucker at UTK, and Dr. Kourosh Shoele at FAMU-FSU) for being awarded an NSF EFRI grant! The project will be working on model-based design and control of power-dense soft hydraulic robots for demanding and uncertain environments.