‘EndoTheia’
How a graduate school “midlife crisis” inspired a breakthrough surgical device
Feb. 28, 2023—By Lucas Johnson When Robert J. Webster III was working on an engineering project for his Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University, he was struck with an unnerving thought: The technology he was helping create seemed interesting, but it wouldn’t reach patients for at least 20 years. “And that’s only if everything went well,” he recalls....
Company co-founded by Vanderbilt professor receives distinguished FDA breakthrough device designation for minimally invasive surgical tool
Jan. 10, 2023—A company co-founded by Robert J. Webster III, Richard A. Schroeder Professor of Mechanical Engineering and associate professor of medicine and urology at Vanderbilt University, has received a breakthrough device designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that could open the door for new diagnostic and therapeutic applications of flexible endoscopy. The designation given...
Vanderbilt professor to use portion of $2.3 million grant on robot technology to help patients avoid invasive colectomies
Aug. 25, 2022—Robert J. Webster III, Richard A. Schroeder Professor of Mechanical Engineering and associate professor of medicine and urology at Vanderbilt University, is part of a collaborative team that has received a more than $2.3 million grant to further develop technology that seeks to prevent patients from having invasive colectomies by using steerable robot-like instruments. Under his...