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Co-Me project 4 Virtual-reality
based training of medical procedures is bearing fruit. Co-Me member
and ETH Zurich engineer Stefan Tuchschmid is taking the helm at the
recently founded company VirtaMed. The start-up - Co-Me's fifth
commercial spin-off - will market simulation software for endoscopic
surgery. Until now doctors acquired knowledge and experience of
operations only through accumulated surgeries. VirtaMed plans to
change that. "Physicians can safely train with our simulator before
their first surgery - just like pilots who train in a flight simulator
prior to taking off in reality", explains VirtaMed CEO Stefan
Tuchschmid.
The courage to create a commercial spin-off and the excellent R&D
that lead to the founding of VirtaMed was acknowledged by ETH. At a
celebratory reception ETH-Research Vicepresident Peter Chen
congratulated Stefan Tuchschmid, Co-Me Director Gábor Székely and
several Co-Me project 4 teamleaders for their work.
VirtaMed's first product will be a software suite for the
simulation of hysteroscopic interventions. It is based on the
prototype for a fully immersive hysteroscopy setup developed in Co-Me
project 4 under the leadership of Matthias Harders in order to
establish a reference simulator. By merging real with artificially
created visual and haptic feedback, the new simulator circumvents some
of the problems that are encountered when trying to mimic certain
surgical procedures.
VirtaMed's system for gynecological operations will go on the
market in 2008.
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