About

Funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the Innovation Center Computer Assisted Surgery (ICCAS) was established in March 2005 at the Medical Faculty of the Universität Leipzig. ICCAS is an interdisciplinary cooperation between the disciplines surgery, computer science and medical engineering. ICCAS focuses on outstanding and internationally competitive research in computer assisted surgery and aims to attract young scientists as well as to transfer the innovative research findings into companies to create innovative products for the future operating room.

Currently, more than 30 researchers from different countries (Africa, America, Asia, and Europe) are doing research within ICCAS. The activities of the ICCAS research groups include methodological work, such as patient modeling, innovative architectures for the future patient model-based operating room, which is known as Therapy Imaging and Model Management System (TIMMS) and assessment of automation effects in surgical workflow. These activities are complemented by the research on visual computing, which aims at novel and effective representation and interaction modes in the OR and other biomedical domains.

Apart from main research topics, some topics of ICCAS research are also funded by third-party fund contributors. Surgical DICOM solutions research with an objective of implementing an abstract patient model based on DICOM standard is funded by European Union and the Saxon Ministry of Science and Fine Arts. The automated soft tissue manipulation with mechatronic assistance using endoscopic Doppler guidance (ASTMA) project is funded by DFG. And the Transapical aortic valve replacement (TAVR) project with an objective of developing a new system for assisting the surgeon to reach the safe region of implantation during transapical minimally invasive aortic valve implantation is funded by Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD).

According to the research activities, ICCAS staff excluding the third-party funded staff is categorised in to 5 main research groups. TIMMS group headed by Dr. Oliver Burgert, Patient Modelling group headed by Dr. Rafael Mayoral, Knowledge Management group headed by Dr. Thomas Neumuth, ASSESS group headed by Dr. Werner Korb and Visual Computing group headed by Prof. Dr. Dirk Bartz.

ICCAS also contributes to the teaching at the Universität Leipzig. In the past years, an increasing number of medical and engineering students have become interested in the topic of computer-assisted surgery. This is an important step to establish computer assisted surgery techniques in clinical routine and research.

All the research outcome of the innovative methods and devices at ICCAS are systematically evaluated with scientific assessment methods together with academic and clinical colleagues from national and international partner universities. In the past years, the strategy of ICCAS not only resulted in recognition as a top level research center for computer assisted surgery, but also led to the founding of two companies, PhaCon and SWAN. PhaCon focuses on the creation of innovative surgery training systems and markets its products through KARL-STORZ, Tuttlingen. SWAN provides expertise in analyzing surgical and medical workflows to optimize clinical routine and to identify organizational bottlenecks.