CAOS International 2002

Back
The Maurice E. Müller Award for Excellence in Computer Assisted Surgery
Sponsored by the M.E. Müller Foundation
Bern, Switzerland

In order to promote research in this emerging area the Maurice E. Müller Award for Excellence in Computer Assisted Surgery will be given at the annual CAOS-International meetings. It recognizes a career long contribution to Computer Assisted Surgery, with achievements that have had a fundamental effect in advancing this research field. A board of referees will search for individuals whose contribution fostered excellence in Computer Assisted Surgery to the present. The nominee/s should be prepared to come to Davos at the time of the meeting to receive the award.

2001 Award Winner: Dr. Lutz-P. Nolte, Ph.D.
Lutz-Peter Nolte received a Ph.D. degree in Theoretical Mechanics from the Ruhr-University in Bochum, Germany in 1983. Between 1986 and 1990 he headed a biomechanics research group in Bochum before he accepted a research appointment at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI, USA. There he met a neurosurgeon who introduced him into the field of computer assisted surgery. Nolte immediately realized the immense potential that free-hand navigation could have on orthopaedic surgery and started the development of one of the first navigation systems for pedicle screw placement. In 1993 he became head of the Orthopaedics Biomechanics Division of the Maurice E. Müller Institute for Biomechanics (MIB) at the University of Bern, Switzerland. He established a research group for Computer Assisted Orthopaedic Surgery and turned the developments that he had initiated in Detroit into clinical applications to be used routinely. Up to now, Nolte and his team have successfully developed free-hand navigations systems for spine, pelvis, hip, head, knee, and trauma surgery. The company Medivision was founded to provide a pipeline for the commercialization of the MIB developments. In 1995 Nolte started the CAOS-Symposium series. These annual meetings quickly became the premier exchange forums for researchers, physicians, and developers involved in the field of Computer Assisted Orthopaedic Surgery. CAOS-USA, North America's twin of these conferences, as well as a considerable number of regional CAOS meetings were launched in the subsequent years, following the concept set by the Switzerland-based symposiums. In 2000, during the 5th Symposium the International Society for Computer Assisted Orthopaedic Surgery was established. Lutz-Peter Nolte had initiated this association and became the first president of CAOS-International. -- Text by F. Langlotz

2000 Award Winner: Dr. Russel H. Taylor, Ph.D.
Russell H. Taylor received a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Stanford in 1976. He then joined IBM Research in different positions and functions. Russ Taylor was closely involved in the development of the Robodoc System, the first active robot worldwide ever to operate on a patient. When the technology of Robodoc was conceived in the mid-eighties, he was the responsible person at IBM to evaluate the possible potential of the technology and the requirements to install a robot in surgery. He then became deeply involved in the development of the system, coordinating different groups of people working all over the United States. The implementation of a robot into a surgical procedure demanded breakthrough technical solutions in many regards, which were one by one developed under the auspices of Russ Taylor, today one of the wordwide leading experts in medical robotics. This finally brought him from IBM to the prestigious position of a Professor of Computer Science at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, with joint appointments in Radiology and Mechanical Engineering. Russ Taylor is the Director of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Computer-Integrated Surgical Systems and Technology at Johns Hopkins, where he is still busy thinking about ways how to make surgeons life easier. -- Text by A. Bauer

1999 Award Winner: Dr. Philippe Cinquin, M.D. Ph.D.
Dr. Philippe Cinquin holds a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics and is a Medical Doctor. His interests are in the field of the application to medical image processing of computer science and applied mathematics. He has been a Professor at the University Joseph Fourier and at the Grenoble University Hospital since 1989. In the early eighties, he launched a program for Computer Assisted Medical Interventions in Grenoble, which he headed successfully from 1985 to 1996. He foresaw very early the potential of this domain and his activities led to the development of the well known CAMI team, which is one of the worldwide leading research groups in this field. This resulted in the successful development, with strong industrial partnerships, of CAMI systems in many different clinical domains. Orthopaedic surgery is the area where Philippe Cinquin obtained most achievements, in particular for his inventions in spine, knee, and pelvic surgery. He also initiated and coordinated three successive European projects dedicated to image-guided orthopaedic surgery. In parallel to his research activities in the CAMI group, he directs since 1996 the Department of Medical Information and Informatics at the Grenoble University Hospital.

Back