Rice-sized robot could rewrite the neurosurgery playbook
By R&D Editors | April 26, 2025
Picture a semi-autonomous device scarcely thicker than a spaghetti noodle, crawling through living brain tissue at the pace of 3 mm per minute and guided by artificial intelligence. That is the vision behind Robeauté SA’s neurosurgical microrobot, a tethered, internally propelled system designed to reduce the trauma, complexity and cost of accessing deep-seated brain lesions.
The Paris startup closed a £23 million Series A round in January 2025 to advance the robot from animal studies into clinical-grade hardware. With “dozens of patents” already on file and a headquarters steps from the city’s life-science cluster, Robeauté claims to be building a platform that can “plug in” new instruments as procedures evolve.
“We’re building what we call a brain gardener, a microrobot that can prune, replant, stimulate growth, and tend to a pathological brain from within,” said Joana Cartocci, Robeauté’s co-founder, at the LSI Europe ‘24 Emerging Medtech Summit in Sintra, Portugal.
As of early 2025, Robeauté is still in preclinical studies although human trials are slated for 2026.
Anatomy of a millimeter-scale machine
The device measures 1 to 2 millimeters in diameter and only a few millimeters long, small enough to fit through a burr hole no wider than the shaft of a pencil lead. At the point of entry, surgeons need an opening of just 1 to 2 millimeters, roughly one-third the diameter many rigid stereotactic cannulas require. Once inside the parenchyma, the robot advances at about 3 Picture a semi-autonomous device scarcely thicker than a spaghetti noodle, crawling through living brain tissue at the pace of 3 mm per minute and guided by artificial intelligence. That is the vision behind Robeauté SA’s neurosurgical microrobot, a tethered, internally propelled system designed to reduce the trauma, complexity and cost of accessing deep-seated brain lesions.
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https://www.rdworldonline.com/rice-sized-robot-could-rewrite-the-neurosurgery-playbook/
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