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‘Robert Webster’

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...

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Vanderbilt researchers’ surgical robots could make radical prostatectomy safer, less invasive

Feb. 10, 2021—Researchers at the Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering have developed a minuscule robot that could revolutionize surgical procedures for treating prostate cancer, which affects one in nine men in the United States. Using a lifelike model, the team demonstrated that the surgical robot could not only remove the prostate gland and tissues through the...

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VU engineers and VUMC doctors team up for open-source ventilator design

Mar. 28, 2020—As COVID-19 continues to push unprecedented challenges on medical communities, one of the most pressing threats for hospital staff across the country is a dwindling supply of ventilators. Now, an interdisciplinary team of Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center faculty is taking on the challenge by way of a fabricated, open-source ventilator design. Led...

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Webster to serve on new VURC Subcommittee for International Research and Engagement

Nov. 18, 2019—Robert J. Webster III, Richard A. Schroeder Professor of Engineering, has been selected to serve on a Subcommittee for International Research and Engagement established by the Vanderbilt University Research Council to provide governance for the TIPs-funded GlobalVU initiative. The GlobalVU initiative aims to improve international research and engagement, bring more international scholars and graduate students...

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Hand-held robot points to less invasive prostate surgery

Jul. 18, 2019—Vanderbilt collaborators focused on minimally invasive prostate surgery are developing an endoscopic robotic system with two-handed dexterity at a much smaller scale than existing options. A key part of the design – telescoping, curved, concentric tubes – received U.S. patent protection in March 2019, the same month the principal investigators secured a $2.1 million R01...

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Engineering faculty to lead two new University Courses

Mar. 26, 2018—School of Engineering faculty will lead two of the five newest University Courses, which are designed to promote new and creative trans-institutional teaching and learning and advance Vanderbilt’s mission. The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be taught by Doug Fisher, associate professor of computer science and associate professor of computer engineering, with support from...

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NIH-funded collaboration to develop steerable robotic needles for lung biopsies

Nov. 8, 2017—What started as graduate school research with steerable needles in blocks of gelatin could help pulmonologists more accurately reach sites in the peripheral lung to biopsy them. A collaboration between that doctoral student – now Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Robert Webster; Dr. Fabien Maldonado a pulmonologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center; and a colleague...

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VISE team wins $1.4 million NIH grant to reboot robotic surgery system

Oct. 17, 2017—A Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering (VISE) team is developing an image guidance interface for the da Vinci robotic surgery system to make partial kidney removal a less invasive “gold standard” when small tumors are involved. In such cases, removing part of a kidney with minimally invasive robotic surgery is often best for a...

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