Johns Hopkins Sets Research Pact With
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
By Audrey Huang Johns Hopkins Medicine
The Johns Hopkins University has established a formal
research collaboration with Germany's
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, described as the largest
organization for applied research in Europe. Under
the agreement, the Johns Hopkins' Fraunhofer Initiative for
Innovations in Interventional Medicine
will bring researchers from the university's schools of
Medicine and Engineering together with
biomedical engineers at Fraunhofer to develop new minimally
invasive surgical tools.
"This agreement provides a wonderful opportunity for
researchers from the two institutions to
work together to develop important new medical tools and
move them out of the lab and into
applications where they can help patients," said Kristina
M. Johnson, provost and senior vice president
for academic affairs at Johns Hopkins. "Joining Johns
Hopkins' expertise in basic research with
Fraunhofer's skills in applied technology should result in
a very productive international partnership."
The initial phase of the collaboration, lasting 15
months, will focus on three projects: the
development of a computer-aided endoscopy tool that can
help diagnose gastrointestinal disease, a
laparoscopic surgery tool that will align pre-operative CT
scans during surgery and a new system that
will track endoscopes and surgical tools during medical
procedures.
Elliot McVeigh, the Massey Professor and director of
Biomedical
Engineering at Johns Hopkins,
said, "Although this collaboration will initially focus on
these three specific projects, we expect that
the underlying technology developed can be applied to a
broad spectrum of interventional and
diagnostic medicine. Perhaps more importantly, the goal of
this joint effort is to develop a long-term
working relationship with teams of engineers at Fraunhofer
that will bring new medical technologies
into practice more rapidly."

Related Web sites
Johns Hopkins Department of Biomedical Engineering
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
NSF Engineering Research Center for Computer-Integrated Surgical
Systems and Technology
GO TO JULY 7, 2008
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
GO TO THE GAZETTE
FRONT PAGE.
|