We are the Mars Mission in the field of medical robotics research.

Engineer Prof. Dr. Philippe Cattin

Medical robots require high safety and usability. Thus, our final system must be intuitive to use like a smartphone.

Roboticist Prof. Dr. Georg Rauter

The laser produces lower temperatures than the saws and drills in use today. So, the bone remains completely intact at the interfaces as if it had not even noticed that anything had happened at all.

Laser Physicist Dr. Ferda Canbaz

With this system, we surgeons no longer have to hammer, drill and saw like the carpenters.

Cranio-Maxillofacial Surgeon Prof. Dr. mult. Florian Thieringer

Imagine a surgical robot hanging from the ceiling of an operating room. It smoothly collaborates with the surgeons, is able to cut bone with unseen precision in all kinds of shapes, and to place smart implants in a minimally invasive way. This is our mission.

We are MIRACLEII, a research project located at the Department of Biomedical Engineering (University of Basel) and funded by the Werner Siemens Stiftung. We bring together researchers from computer science, engineering, robotics, laser physics, surgery, and other disciplines to launch bone surgery into the space age. MIRACLEII stands for Minimally Invasive Robot Assisted Computer guided LaserosteotomE. Take glimpse into the project here.

Building on the achievements of the MIRACLE Project led by Prof. Hans-Florian Zeilhofer and Prof. Philippe Cattin, we have now entered into our second project phase. The team around the computer scientist Prof. Dr. Philippe Cattin, roboticist Prof. Dr. Georg Rauter, cranio-maxillo-facial surgeon PD Dr. Dr. Florian Thieringer, and laser physicist Dr. Ferda Canbaz  is on its way to make osteotomy (bone surgery) minimally invasive. We are the Mars Mission in the field of medical robotics research.

Contact: Dr Constanze Pfeiffer (constanze.pfeiffer@clutterunibas.ch)

Four System Elements—Four Teams

The Planning & Navigation Group develops virtual reality for surgical planning and augmented reality for monitoring.

 

The Bio-Inspired Robots for MEDicine Lab provides robotic technology for minimally invasive laser osteotomy.

The Biomedical Lasers & Optics Group provides lasers saws and feedback systems for the MIRACLE II.

The Smart Implants Group develops 3D print technologies for truely patient specific implants.


All this was made possible by:

Werner Siemens Stiftung