Dr. Brett Bell, group head of surgical robotics for the ARTORG Center for Biomedical Engineering at the University of Bern in Switzerland, will be on campus Monday, June 17. His seminar entitled, “High accuracy minimally invasive robotic surgery,” will be held at noon in Room 2250 of the Warnock Engineering Building (WEB). All are invited to attend and help spread the word.
Dr. Bell received his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering, Magna Cum Laude from Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN, in 2009. Of recent note, in 2013 Bell was honored as winner of the Ypsomed Innovation Prize and in 2011 with the CTI Swiss Medtech Best Poster Award.
Recent research activities have focused on the reduction of invasiveness for cochlear implant (CI) surgery. A custom image-guided microsurgical robot system, developed within the group for image guided therapy, facilitates the minimally invasive CI approach, the direct cochlear access (DCA), by drilling a small tunnel (1.8 mm in diameter) through the mastoid part of the temporal bone. As the project progresses, a possible first-in-man study is intended to be conducted by the research team. An in-vitro study investigating the feasibility and efficacy of electrode insertion without the aid of insertion tools has been conducted (see figure below). Required further investigation into an optimal electrode implantation approach that provides atraumatic insertion when hearing preservation is demanded is currently being undertaken.