{"id":901,"date":"2017-10-18T09:00:02","date_gmt":"2017-10-18T14:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/universityfundingprograms\/?p=901"},"modified":"2017-10-19T10:29:45","modified_gmt":"2017-10-19T15:29:45","slug":"medical-engineering-and-discovery-med-laboratory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/universityfundingprograms\/2017\/10\/medical-engineering-and-discovery-med-laboratory\/","title":{"rendered":"Medical Engineering and Discovery (MED) Laboratory"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Webster\"

Robert Webster, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and VISE Steering Committee Member<\/p><\/div>\n

Written by Robert Webster, <\/em>Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and VISE Steering Committee Member\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The Vanderbilt School of Engineering\u2019s\u00a0Medical Engineering and Discovery (MED) Laboratory\u00a0<\/a>pursues research at the interface of surgery and engineering.\u00a0Our mission is to enhance the lives of patients by engineering better devices and tools to assist physicians. Much of our current research involves designing and constructing the next generation of surgical robotic systems that are less invasive, more intelligent and more accurate. These devices typically work collaboratively with surgeons, assisting them with image guidance and dexterity in small spaces. Creating these devices involves research in design, modeling, control and human interfaces for novel robots. Specific current projects include needle-sized tentacle-like robots, advanced manual laparoscopic instruments with wrists and elbows, image guidance for high-accuracy inner ear surgery and abdominal soft tissue procedures, and swallowable pill-sized robots for interventions in the gastrointestinal tract.<\/p>\n

PhD students and postdocs working in the lab are responsible for each of our projects.They work on every aspect of the projects,\u00a0beginning with observing surgeries with clinical collaborators and brainstorming initial ideas. They then help generate early preliminary studies, write grant proposals, build refined systems after grants are secured and experimentally validate their systems.\u00a0<\/span>We typically have about 10 PhD students in the lab along with 1-3 postdocs.\u00a0Undergraduate researchers also often work in the lab \u2013 usually about 3-4 per semester and in the summer.\u00a0They are generally paired with a PhD student or postdoc and assist in the design of a subsystem for the student\u2019s PhD project or on implementing a software module or building a tool for a surgeon collaborator. They are always directly mentored by a PhD student or postdoc.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Members

Members of the MED Lab pose for a photo.<\/p><\/div>\n

Breakthrough results from the lab include the invention of steerable needles, which are now an active subfield of surgical robotics, and applied in several medical applications.\u00a0Similarly, we invented concentric tube robots, which are now widely used in the field and are poised to assist in a wide variety of medical applications<\/span>. We also pioneered the use of bone-attached robots to help deaf people hear again through safely installing cochlear implants.\u00a0We use magnetic fields to steer the implants, and are building robots inspired by elephants\u2019 trunks and octopus\u2019 tentacles. We are also creating surgical GPS systems to help surgeons better understand where subsurface tumors, blood vessels and nerves are before making incisions.<\/p>\n