NEW YORK, NY AND CAMBRIDGE, MA: Gianluca De Novi, Ph.D., CEO of XSurgical, a firm developing and bringing to market a remotely controlled surgical robot, was a guest panelist  for “Robotic Surgery: Visions of the Future” at the 2019 MD&M East event in New York city.

“The surgical robotics landscape is moving at lightening pace, with more and more entrants each year. In this session, seasoned veterans of robotic surgery companies shared their thoughts about the state of surgical robotics technology today and where it’s headed in the next five to 10 years. Our expert panel talked about how the market is responding to new surgical robotics technologies, the impact of surgical robotics on innovation, how both surgeon- and patient-centric focuses have changed design, and new surgical robotics innovations expected in the next decade,” said Moderator Shana Leonard, Vice President, Content and Strategy, Advanced Manufacturing Group, UBM Americas.

De Novi discussed the third iteration of the XSurgical robot that is being developed which can be deployed in situations of disaster recovery, battlefield and is looking at the future space missions. The surgical robot will be able to perform minimally invasive and open surgery procedures, guided by surgeons from remote locations and employs Artificial Intelligence (AI) to assist the surgeon. The concept has received strong reviews from experts in the military and the Department of Defense. XSurgical is also working to develop further the artificial intelligence to make subsequent robots fully autonomous.

De Novi, a native of Bernalda, Basilicata (Italy), is a faculty member at the Harvard Medical School and Harvard Extension School; he earned his master’s degree in electronics engineering and his Ph.D. in robotics and control systems from the University of Bologna in Italy. While there, he also worked at the Laboratory of Automation and Robotics. After spending one year as a visiting researcher at the bio-robotics laboratory of Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, he leads the Medical Device and Simulation Laboratory  at the Department of Imaging of the Massachusetts General Hospital.

De Novi has also acted as scientific consultant to many leading corporations and research institutions.

His interest in computer-based surgery began with exploration of cutting-edge technologies for graphic rendering and developing a complete virtual reality framework optimized for robotic surgery. During his post-doctoral fellowship, he focused his interests on other crucial aspects of robotic surgery, such as real-time gesture analysis and task recognition and augmented reality.

He has been a scientific and strategic advisor at ADM Tronics Unlimited Inc. since May 2015 and served as a member of its Advisory Board since September 2014. The PrimiDieci Society and the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce recognized Dr. De Novi as one of the ten most distinguished Italian Professionals in the United States under the age of 40 in 2013.

“It was a pleasure to take part in this informative panel discussion with leaders in the field and such an engaged and enthusiastic audience,” said De Novi. “There is so much happening in surgical robotics with new technology and developments coming to market.”