Project Info
Project Description
Implantable robotic organs
Pisa, Settembre 28th 2018
Polo Universitario Le Benedettine
14:30 – 17:15
Abstract
Fully implanted devices able to restore the functionality of compromised or lost organs have the potential to dramatically improve the quality of life of patients affected by chronic pathologies. This challenge may have an enormous impact in the biomedical field. Among the different approaches that can be pursued to restore organ functionalities, the one based on “robotic” technologies is very intriguing. Miniaturized fully implanted robotic devices, in fact, can exploit their sensors and actuators to reproduce complex functions, without interfering with the normal patient lifestyle, being completely disappearing within the body. To make this paradigm successful, researchers and clinicians must face several technological and biological issues, related to smart technological components development, non-invasive powering, biocompatibility of the materials interfaced with the patients’ tissues, etc. An interdisciplinary approach is needed, merging competences typical of the bioengineering field together with skills and technologies used in the robotic domain, with the final aim of achieving hi-tech systems allowing patients to forget their pathology.
This event will describe some examples of this emerging field and will analyze and discuss the steps needed to boost this paradigm towards clinical routines.
