Humanoid robot performs first-ever surgery in major medical breakthrough

A humanoid robot has successfully performed the surgery for the very first time in a historic medical milestone.

In the first operation, the robot, named Surgie worked alongside the surgeons from the University of California San Diego and removed a gall bladder. In the second operation, two robots performed a laparoscopic gallbladder removing surgery on non-primate mammals.

Michael Yip, a faculty member in the UC San Diego Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and one of the paper's senior authors explained that “This study shows that humanoid robots have a viable future in the field of surgery.”

“Remotely operated and autonomous humanoid robots have real potential for amplifying access to critical surgeries to which patients would otherwise not have access. This can help address the healthcare crisis not only in the United States, but also worldwide.”

The robot was teleoperated by a trained surgeon. Researchers are actively working on integrating artificial intelligence to enable autonomous surgical assistance in the future.

As per researchers’ findings published in the Nature Journal, the robotic-based surgical procedures are significantly cheaper than specialized robots while requiring much less space in an operating room. They are also capable of performing a wider range of procedures and tasks compared to fixed-purpose robotic systems.

"One of our goals is to develop an autonomous surgical assistant," Dr Yip said.

"Our goal is an operating theatre of the future, where humanoid robots and humans work side by side as an integrated team to deliver procedures to those in need, both in traditional hospital settings as well as in non-traditional, field medicine scenarios."