Seminar: Next in-the-body hybrid robots for human health, Dr Dana Damian, University of Sheffield

Abstract:
One of the next technological frontiers in medicine is the realization of personalized robots that integrate seamlessly with the human to perform repair or augmentation of various biological functions over extended period of time. In this talk I will introduce three types of in-the-body robots, emphasizing on their specific biology-imposed challenges and on technological approaches for personalized long-term medical assistance. First, I will present robotic implants that reside inside the body and grow new gastrointestinal tissue by applying controlled mechanical stimulation. Second, I will introduce a fault-tolerant shape-changing robot that exploits its mechanics to extend its life time, which is critical for implantable technology. Lastly, I will present a soft robot that features shape configurability from one to three dimensions for minimal/non-invasive implantation and for conformation to organ.

Bio:
Dana D. Damian is a Lecturer in the Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering at the University of Sheffield since 2015, where she is directing the Sheffield Biomedical Robotics Laboratory. She received her Dipl.Eng. (honors) in computer science and engineering from the Technical University Timisoara, Romania in 2007. She received her PhD (summa cum laude) in robotics from the University of Zurich, Switzerland in 2012. During 2011 she was a Visiting Scholar at the Johns Hopkins University, and at Stanford University, U.S.A. In 2012 she was a Visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Mellon University, U.S.A. Subsequently, from 2013, she worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard University, U.S.A. Her research interests reside in the area of medical robots and assistive technology, aspiring to create sustainable robots for personalized medicine.