You just never know what will get the creative juices flowing. It could be a slight aberration from your morning routine . Or it could be something as basic as the entree you order at dinner. The latter is actually what inspired the invention of a crab-like miniature robot that could help surgeons remove early-stage stomach cancers without leaving scars.
Professor Laurence Ho of Singapore's National University Hospital worked with Louis Phee, associate professor at Singapore's Nanyang Technological Institute's school of mechanical and aerospace engineering, to develop the robot.
According to Reuters , Phee and Ho went on to develop the robot after a seafood dinner in 2004 with Hong Kong surgeon Sydney Chung, who suggested they model their device after a crab. The robot, which enters through the patient's mouth, includes a pincer and a hook, and is mounted on an endoscope. The pincer is used to hold cancerous tissues, while the hook slices them off and coagulates blood to stop the bleeding. The surgeon uses a tiny camera attached to the endoscope to see what is going on inside the gut, while controlling the arms remotely in front of a monitor.
The researchers formed a company last October and plan to make the robot commercially available within three years.
