Two medical engineering professors at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, have applied their knowledge of engineering and origami to developing surgical tools that can reduce the size of incisions and eliminate the need for sutures.
To that end, BYU has licensed several origami-inspired technologies to Intuitive Surgical, a leader in robotic surgery and the manufacturer of the da Vinci Surgical System.
The technologies licensed to Intuitive Surgical are not only smaller than tools traditionally used during surgery, they use fewer parts. Both the size and simplicity of the new BYU-designed technology may make surgery more precise and less invasive, according to mechanical engineering professor Spencer Magleby, PhD.
"Those who design spacecraft want their products to be small and compact because space is at a premium on a spacecraft, but once you get in space, they want those same products to be large, such as solar arrays or antennas," said Dr. Magleby. "There's a similar idea here: We'd like something to get quite small to go through the incision, but once it's inside, we'd like it to get much larger."
To learn more about this technology and how the engineers were inspired by the ancient Japanese art of folding paper, watch the video below.
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