CFA2 symposium on New Technology
ACROBATIC held its second symposium within Clinical Focus Area 2 (CFA2) “Surgical innovation and technique” focusing on New Technology at Comwell Aarhus on November 2nd through 3rd 2023.
The first session on day 1 focused on new technology in the future. Professor Jan Wolff from Department of Dentistry and Oral Health at Aarhus University gave a talk on new surgical technologies, guiding the participants through the history and development of new technologies, including medical imaging, computing, manufacturing, virtual reality, robotics, augmented reality, machine learning, and the stages of artificial intelligence (AI), among others, and how all these technologies combined can be used as new surgical techniques in the future. Mette Terp Høybye from Department of Anthropology followed in the footsteps giving a perspective on new technology from an anthropological view focusing on the human relation and interaction with new technology. Ligita Paskeviciute Frøding, member of ACROBATIC’s Center of Knowledge and receiver of an ACROBATIC grant, presented her project “SENTIVUC” concerning sentinel node biopsy in vulva cancer. The first session was rounded off with a discussion on how to use AI on patient data sets, the current value of AI, and how to create a safe relation to AI.
The next session concerned a new technology about neuropathic pain after orthopedic surgery injecting botox around the affected skin nerve(s) to alleviate the pain for chronic pain patients, lectured by Professor Thomas Fichtner from Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University Hospital.
To end the day, Professor Susanne Dalton from Danish Cancer Society and the research center, COMPAS, informed the participants about social inequity in cancer.
Day 2 at the symposium focused on the interaction between researcher and industry. The program was based on the TV show “Løvens Hule (original “Dragons’ Den). For this purpose, four guest speakers (“Løver”: Claus Hansen – CH Medinvest, Martin Vesterby – MedData, Jacob Elmose Jensen – Cystotech, and Sys Zoffmann Glud – BioMedicalDesign) were invited to talk about their journey within entrepreneurship, investment, and the collaboration between industry and university/researchers. This session was followed by a pitch from tree different researchers with a project with a potential to move their research to a commercial setting for the benefit of the patients. Thomas Baad-Hansen (AUH; substitute for Ph.D. Christian Lind Nielsen) gave a pitch on a new technology using a cold ablation laser robot to cut bone into a puzzly structure. Post doc Mai-Britt Worm Ørntoft (MOMA) gave a pitch on screening for circulating tumor DNA in pancreatic patients, and lastly, Post Doc Kim Lindberg Schwaner (SDU Robotics) gave a pitch on surgical data vault.
