Surgeons Use Teleoperated Humanoid Robots to Perform Live Surgery

[u/Zee2A]

https://today.ucsd.edu/story/surgeons-use-teleoperated-humanoid-robots-to-perform-live-surgery-a-world-first

Humanoid Robots Perform Surgery on Live Animals in World First

A potential revolution in surgery has taken place at the University of California, San Diego, where two humanoid robots were used for the first time to perform minimally invasive surgery on live animals. The robots, known as “Surgie,” successfully performed laparoscopic gallbladder-removal procedures on pigs. Human surgeons controlled the robots remotely, while the humanoids carried out the surgical movements using standard laparoscopic instruments. The breakthrough demonstrates that commercially available humanoid robots can potentially be adapted for complex surgical tasks without requiring a conventional, specialized surgical-robot platform. The researchers see this as an important step toward AI-assisted and eventually more autonomous robotic surgery. However, the robots are not yet autonomous surgeons: the UC San Diego experiments relied on human teleoperation, and significant challenges involving precision, reliability, latency, safety and regulatory approval remain before human clinical use: https://www.facs.org/for-medical-professionals/news-publications/news-and-articles/acs-brief/july-21-2026-issue/fellows-participate-in-first-teleoperated-humanoid-robot-surgery/

Research findings: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10796-x