Group leader Dr. Claire Chalopin is participant at the 136th Congress of the German Surgery Society in Munich. Her lecture topic in the session “Imaging” will be “Machine-learning methods for tissue classification in hyperspectral imaging”.

In the afternoon of March 5, Prof. Dr. Thomas Lenk, Prorector for Development and Transfer at Leipzig University and the Leipzig Chamber of Commerce and Industry invited to the Future Med Technologies (FMT)-TransferMeeting at ICCAS. In front of representatives of regional companies, local municiplaities and science, he emphazised that the bridge between science and industry is already lived par excellence at ICCAS. The guests gathered to explore the ICCAS projects and common interests.

Current research projects were presented in live demos. They ranged from software solutions such as the digital patient and therapy decision model over transfer projects such as the joint project IMPACT for the development of a mobile system for lung function diagnostics to comprehensive digital assistants in the operating room of the future. Other exhibits included multimodal intraoperative imaging procedures, medical robotics and computer-assisted image-guided interventions. At the subsequent get-together a lively exchange took place and contacts were made.

On March 5, ICCAS hosted the doctoral workshop “Future Med Technologies” (FMT) on the medical campus with the support of the Economic Development Corporation of Leipzig City. The workshop addressed on the one hand companies of the region, who introduced themselves with their products and job offers, and on the other hand the PhD students, who presented their current research topics and innovative approaches in the field of medical- and biotechnology. The network event was also accompanied by the Department for Research and Transfer Services and the Carrier Center of Leipzig University and the start-up initiative Smile.

The Economic Development Corporation awarded a prize for the best presentation to Juliane Neumann (ICCAS) for her work on optimizing work processes in operating rooms. Hannes Köhler (ICCAS) and Max Böhme (HTWK) were awarded the second places.

Prof. Melzer and Dr. Lisa Landgraf were invited at the leading european congress in the field of medical image processing and image guided therapy on March 1st.

https://www.myesr.org/congress

For 25 years, the ECR has been gathering experts from this field to meet the emerging clinical, technological and social challenges of the discipline.

Prof. Melzer’s contribution was: ‘TRANS-FUSIMO: preliminary in-vivo animal results of MR-guided focused ultrasound of liver under respiratory motion’.

Dr. Lisa Landgraf presented her poster : ‘In vitro investigation of combined focused ultrasound (FUS) hyperthermia (HT) and radiation therapy (RT) for future use of image guided FUS and RT in the clinic’ in the session Interventional Radioloy.

A TV team from Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) filmed the intelligent, networked demo OR in ICCAS. In addition to the unique interaction of high tech in the operating theatre, a robotic application for the precise removal of tumour tissue can also be discovered.

The contribution is broadcasted on “3sat nano TV” and “MDR Wissen” and can currently be found in the media library.

12 years old children from university staff members visited ICCAS in the frame of MEFALE to learn more about the application fields of medical informatics and new technologies.

Before they could try out several models, they received an overview of the diverse work areas at the Innovation Center for Computer Assisted Surgery. A wide range of insights was presented from cell culture to biopsy and experiments in the research OR. The kids were very pleased with the insights into the digitized working world and especially loved to do experiments with the reanimation doll in the Operating Theater.

On January 30, 2019, for the second time ICCAS welcomed participants of the conference “Kunststoff trifft Medizintechnik” organized by the Kunststoff-Zentrum Leipzig.

Dr.-Ing. Stefan Franke presented ICCAS’s Intelligent Operating Room of the Future and discussed current developments and perspectives in the medical technology industry with the visitors.

On January 24, the Dean of the Medical Faculty, Prof. Dr. Christoph Josten, opened the ICCAS Status Seminar 2018. It was attended by numerous guests from science, politics and associations, the health industry as well as the members of the board and scientific board. He praised the view of the institute for the implementation of scientific results to direct patient care as well as the good public perception. The Dean compared the ICCAS with a young tree, which has to be well maintained by the faculty in order to become strong.

The guests were able to convince themselves of the 2018 successes on the basis of the group leaders’ results reports and the subsequent live demonstrations. The projects MoVE, IMPACT and AutoSON were presented. Scientists of the Digital Patient Model – group presented their software system as it will be used in the tumor board of the Leipzig University Hospital this year. Furthermore, the progresses of the project SONO-RAY as well as an application of medical robotics were presented.

We thank all guests for their interest and cooperation and look forward to an inspiring and interesting year 2019.

ICCAS’s results and activities in 2018 can be read in the new Annual Report 2018. A look inside is worthwhile!

With his Poster on “Integrated System Architecture for Model-Based Decision Support in ENT” Jan Gaebel won the poster prize at the 15^th Leipzig Research Festival for Life Sciences 2019 in the category Computer Assisted Surgery.

14 discussion-friendly seniors visited our demo-OR on January 16, and had decision support systems explained by the scientists. The interested audience asked many critical questions about the ambivalence of artificial intelligence, the responsibility of the clinicians, debates concerning patient’s maturity and the economization of the health care system.