Cancer Hunter
Endoscopies rely on a physician’s steady hands operating a long camera as it’s manually fed into, and manipulated within, a patient’s body. Co-founder Fred Moll and his team at Redwood City, California–based Auris Health spent six years building the Monarch Platform, a robotic system that helps doctors navigate the twists and turns in your lungs. In March, Auris won FDA clearance to use it to screen for lung cancer, which kills 1.7 million people worldwide each year. This medical detective can scope out other organs as well.
Space Invader
Monarch’s edge over humans is precision. “To position anything in 3-D space, you need six degrees of freedom: x, y, z, roll, pitch, and yaw,” says David Noonan, Auris’s director of systems, algorithms, and robotics.
