Worcester Polytechnic Institute(WPI, Worcester, MA, USA;www.wpi.edu) researcher Loris Fichera has been awarded a USD 600,000 grant by the National Science Foundation( NSF, Alexandria,VA,USA;www.nsf.gov) for a five-year project that aims to create a new category of surgical robots.

The new generation of energy-based surgical robots will be able to better understand and monitor the effects of heat on body tissues,enabling surgeons to perform minimally invasive surgeries with greater precision and without harming healthy tissue.

These robots will be capable of treating diseases by delivering concentrated energy, such as light,without cutting or touching human tissues.