GE Global Research Center will provide thermal imaging capabilities for monitoring in real time the ablation of tissue, and providing feedback on the effects. It also will assist in integrating the robotic system with its clinical MR scanner.

To account for the power of MR magnets, the robot will not be composed of ferrous metals, but instead plastics and ceramics, equipped with piezoelectric motors and custom motion electronics to generate very low levels of electrical noise to avoid disrupting the MR imaging system. It will be able to work within the tight confines of the MR scanner and within the presence of other technology, such as anesthesia equipment, imaging coils, and patient monitoring apparatus, and will be designed in a fashion that enables any parts that come into contact with patients to be sterilized.


The system is derived from an earlier solution designed and tested by the WPI-Albany medical College team, with funding provided through an earlier five-year, $3 million award from the NIH. The current sum provided will go toward efforts to model the behavior of the ultrasound ablation system, implement thermal monitoring for real-time feedback on dose delivery, optimize and verify its effectiveness, and verify its use and safety for admission to human clinical trials.

Researchers hope to eventually expand its use into other realms, including the delivery of other ablation technologies, performance of biopsies and electrode placement, and the delivery of therapeutics such as gene therapy.

The main focus at the moment, though, is getting the solution into clinical settings and creating streamlined approaches that minimize time and setup during procedures, as well as minimize the chance of having to re-operate on patients.

"Neurosurgery procedures often require a number of steps to ensure registration between the surgical plan, the instruments, and the patient. Further, often the instrument is moved in and out of position manually a number of times during a procedure," said Fischer. "By adding robotic actuation, the room for human error and the speed of progressing through the steps can be improved. And intraoperative imaging ensures appropriate alignment, as we are directly imaging the instrument along with the patient anatomy simultaneously."

Part of development and testing of the system will be conducted at WPI’s PracticePoint R&D facility for medical cyber-physical systems, a membership-based research, development, and commercialization alliance for the advancement of healthcare technologies.

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