Shape-shifting 'Tube Robot' Could Aid Heart Surgery Via the Internal Jugular Vein

A surgical robot that can change its shape to skirt safely around vital organs and navigate inside arteries could one day spare cardiac patients the risks of open heart surgery. The instruments currently used in keyhole surgery are either stiff and needlelike, so they can only be maneuvered in straight lines, or flexible and are unable to transmit any force to the tissue. Pierre Dupont, a biomedical engineer at Boston University, and his team have come up with a way to combine the steerability of a flexible catheter with the stiffness of a needle.