Skip to main content

Snake robots will crawl up your nose to help surgeons perform surgery on you

VU Inside: Giving Surgical Robots a Human Touch
Does the idea of a snake robot that enters your body via your nose or urethra — i.e., the duct in the end of the penis through which fluids are conveyed — sound like the stuff of nightmares? Well, forget any temporary thoughts of discomfort because such a robot may just save your life one day.

A bioengineering professor at Vanderbilt University, Nabil Simaan, has been busy developing snake-like robots for more than a decade.

Recommended Videos

He first started while he was at Johns Hopkins University in 2003 when he and fellow researchers developed an early snakebot with the goal of carrying out upper airway surgery.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

Jump — or should that be slither? — forward to the present day and Simaan is continuing to hone the concept: Using the snake form factor to make surgical robots that can help mitigate against negative side effects of surgery by requiring only tiny entry points into the body to access areas that would be difficult for a human hand to reach.

“We’ve found that these robots have the ideal shape because they allow us to circumvent anatomical obstacles, and mean that you’re no longer limited to accessing the body using a wrist-on-a-stick — which is currently the state-of-the-art in robotic surgery,” Simaan told Digital Trends.

Using sensor-based intelligence, these flexible robots represent an exciting development: opening up possibilities, if not patients.

“Recently, we’ve been working on a snake robot that can enter the body through the nose and then drop down into the upper airway for microsurgery,” Simaan said. “What’s special about these robots is that they can sense their way in and participate in carrying out the procedure with the surgeon — so that the surgeon doesn’t have to manually steer them into place. The surgeon feeds them into the nose but they then sense their surroundings and feel their way.”

The research means that some otherwise arduous operations could be made into more straightforward outpatient procedures. For example, entering through the nose — therefore bypassing the gag reflex — Simaan’s flexible snake robots could carry out vocal cord operations without requiring major surgery and full anesthesia.

Next up? Entering through the urethra to help treat bladder cancer. “We’re expected to go into studies over the next couple of months,” he said. “The goal of the project is to use our snake robot to facilitate dexterous bladder cancer tumor investigations transurethrally.”

Luke Dormehl
Former Digital Trends Contributor
I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…
Hyundai Ioniq 5 sets world record for greatest altitude change
hyundai ioniq 5 world record altitude change mk02 detail kv

When the Guinness World Records (GWR) book was launched in 1955, the idea was to compile facts and figures that could finally settle often endless arguments in the U.K.’s many pubs.

It quickly evolved into a yearly compilation of world records, big and small, including last year's largest grilled cheese sandwich in the world.

Read more
Global EV sales expected to rise 30% in 2025, S&P Global says
ev sales up 30 percent 2025 byd sealion 7 1stbanner l

While trade wars, tariffs, and wavering subsidies are very much in the cards for the auto industry in 2025, global sales of electric vehicles (EVs) are still expected to rise substantially next year, according to S&P Global Mobility.

"2025 is shaping up to be ultra-challenging for the auto industry, as key regional demand factors limit demand potential and the new U.S. administration adds fresh uncertainty from day one," says Colin Couchman, executive director of global light vehicle forecasting for S&P Global Mobility.

Read more
Faraday Future could unveil lowest-priced EV yet at CES 2025
Faraday Future FF 91

Given existing tariffs and what’s in store from the Trump administration, you’d be forgiven for thinking the global race toward lower electric vehicle (EV) prices will not reach U.S. shores in 2025.

After all, Chinese manufacturers, who sell the least expensive EVs globally, have shelved plans to enter the U.S. market after 100% tariffs were imposed on China-made EVs in September.

Read more