University of Pisa – Project Coordinator (Italy)

The project will be carried out by the technical staff of the Department of Information Engineering and the Centre of Excellence EndoCAS for Computer Assisted Surgery, founded with funds from  MIUR (Ministry of University and Research) with Ministerial Decree of 17 October 2003, prot. n. 193/2003, under the call “co-financing Centers of Excellence, Bando 2001.” EndoCAS is today a research and education laboratory of the Department of Translational Research and of New Surgical and Medical Technologies of the University of  Pisa.

The mission of EndoCAS-Research is to develop breakthrough technologies based on engineering and information  technologies to improve the current surgical procedures and reduce their invasiveness mainly by means of an optimal use of medical imaging. The research areas addressed by the Centre are:

• Development of segmentation software for the generation of patient specific 3D models
• Surgical navigation systems for mininvasive treatments;
• Augmented Reality for surgical guidance of and surgical simulators;
• Surgical simulators development
• Surgical simulators validation

EndoCAS applies computer assisted surgery (CAS) systems to demonstrate their effectiveness and encourages their market exploitation, offers analysis of the effectiveness and cost-benefit ratio and validation of  both commercial and custom-made systems.

UNIPI, beside coordinating the project will be focused on VOSTARS design and integration. From the technical standpoint, they  will be crucial in the definition of the most appropriate tracking methods and on the definition of the ergonomics of the virtual content in relation to the surgical task on which VOSTARS will be assessed. UNIPI will define user requirements, and will as well coordinate the clinical trials.

The components of the team:

Vincenzo Ferrari, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, PhD – Project Coordinator (PI) – Marina Carbone, Biomedical Engineer. PhD – Scientific Manager e WP12 Leader – Fabrizio Cutolo, Electronic Engineer, PhD – WP7 Leader – Software Development Coordinator – Sara Condino, Biomedical Engineer, PhD – In Vitro Testing coordinator – Benish Fida, Computer Scientist, PhD – Sofware developer – Renzo D’Amato, Aerospace Engineer, PhD – Mechanical Design and Engineering – Virginia Mamone, Biomedical Eng, PhD Student.