Professor, Mechanical EngineeringCanada Research Chair, Micro and Nano Engineering SystemsDirector, Robotics InstituteUniversity of Toronto
Yu Sun is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, with joint appointments in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto (UofT). He is a Tier I Canada Research Chair and was the founding Director of the UofT Robotics Institute. His lab specializes in developing innovative technologies and instruments for manipulating and characterizing cells, molecules, and nanomaterials. He is a Fellow of Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE), a Fellow of The Academy of Science of Royal Society of Canada (RSC), a Fellow of Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (CAHS), and a Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. He was also elected Fellow of IEEE, ASME, AIMBE, AAAS, NAI, CSME, and EIC for his work on micro-nano robotic systems and devices. He is the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Trans. Automation Science and Engineering and is on the editorial board of the AAAS journal, Science Robotics. Among the awards he received were an NSERC E.W.R. Steacie Fellowship, NSERC Synergy Award of Innovation, IEEE McNaughton Gold Medal, IEEE EMBS Technical Achievement Award, and UofT President’s Impact Award.
Medical Robotics for Cell Surgery
Abstract The capability of manipulating micro and nanometer-sized objects, such as cells and nanomaterials opens new frontiers in robotic surgery, disease diagnostics, industrial applications and enables new discoveries in many disciplines such as biology, medicine, and materials science. The past two decades have witnessed spurred development of micro-nanorobotic systems and technologies with common hallmarks of precision instrumentation, sensing, actuation, and control. This talk will begin with a brief review of the evolution of the robotic micromanipulation field, followed by an overview of challenges, opportunities, and representative advances recently made in this field. Examples of robotic cell manipulation systems for clinical surgery and drug screen will be given; sub-micrometer position control and sub-nanoNewton force control for realizing 3D intracellular and intra-tissue manipulation and measurement will be introduced; and mechanical nanosurgery of chemoresistant tumors will be discussed.