Bulletin No. 2, 2023

D octors and engineers speak their own professional languages, and their paths seldom cross. At CUHK, however, a team of surgeons and engineers have managed to develop a synergy that is advancing robotic-assisted surgical procedures and therapeutic methods. Their track record in advancing surgical robotics technology has earned them InnoHK funding support from the Hong Kong government and secured HK$470 million to establish the Multi-Scale Medical Robotics Center (MRC) in April 2020. The trailblazer in medicine and engineering “CUHK was the first to introduce minimally invasive surgery in Hong Kong in 1990,” says CUHK Department of Surgery Professor Philip Chiu Wai-yan, Co-Director of the MRC. Since then, the department has kept improving and broadening the application of minimally invasive surgeries. The department utilises a robotic surgical system which enhances the performance of minimally invasive surgery with stable, precise robotic arms for delicate surgical procedures deep inside our bodies. “We introduced the first da Vinci® Surgical System in 2005, followed by an advanced version in 2008,” says Professor Chiu. “But we are not engineers. We don’t have a clue if any engineering innovation can be applied to medical treatment.” He started to search for a like-minded engineer partner. He knew Professor Samuel Au Kwok-wai’s outstanding work in the US through the alumni network. Professor Au, the founding team member of the da Vinci Single-Site surgical platform and da Vinci ION platform, who has spent almost two decades in the 8 Chinese University Bulletin No. 2, 2023