Robotics can play many vital roles in human healthcare. Besides surgery, there is plenty of room that medical robotics could contribute to translational medicine, such as medical screening and triage, automated drug delivery and blood withdrawal, and remote diagnosis and telemedicine. The most promising application is automated closed-loop therapy, which has shown great clinical potential in diabetes treatment, brain stimulation treatment, anesthesia, and chemotherapies. A closed-loop therapeutic system shares many similarities to a robotic system, which usually consists of 1) sensors for continuous monitoring drugs’ pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, 2) a controller for real-time processing of the feedback from the sensors to determine the next optimal drug doses, and 3) a controlled release device to dynamically adjust drug delivery. Here, I will give three examples that I've investigated in preclinical and clinical studies throughout the past four years. The first example is using robotics to automate the laborious procedures in insulin therapy to enhance diabetic patients’ medication adherence. The second example is how a mobile robotic camera system could contribute to medical screening and triage as well as continuous monitoring of ambulatory patients in a hospital setting during the COVID-19 pandemic. The third example is how a robotic-assisted closed-loop therapeutic system can prevent death from a medical emergency without human intervention.
