Fit4 medical robotics, project coordinated by the CNR
di Beatrice Passarelli
THEUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma and the Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Campus Bio-Medico are among the partner entities of "Fit for Medical Robotics: A new generation of biorobotic and digital technologies for a sustainable welfare", an ambitious research project that aims to revolutionize rehabilitation models and current healthcare through the use of the most modern robotic and digital technologies.
The initiative, launched last December and coordinated by the National Research Council, was financed as part of the National Plan for investments complementary to the PNRR of the Ministry of University and Research dedicated to strengthening research on enabling technologies in the healthcare sector .
Fit4 Medical Robotics involves twenty-four partners, including ten universities and research centers, eleven IRCSS or clinical centers and three industrial companies. Ucbm participates with six research units (IngTissue and chemical engineering forIngengineering – prof.ssa Marcella Trombetta; Advanced Robotics and Human Centered Technologies – prof.ssa Loredana Zollo; Processing Systems and Bioinformatics – prof. Giulio Iannello; Intelligent Technologies for Health and Wellbeing: Sustainable Design, Management and Evaluation – prof. Leandro Pecchia; Neurology, Neurophysiology, Neurobiology – prof. Vincenzo Di Lazzaro; NeXT: Neurophysiology and NeuroingEngineering of Human-Technology Interaction – prof. Giovanni Di Pino), focusing his work on the optimization of technologies that already exist but not completely consolidated in clinical practice and on the creation of new sensors and materials capable of responding to needs that are not yet satisfied.
“We are making available all the knowledge acquired so far in the field of rehabilitation and assistance robotics – explains the professor Loredana Zollo, Dean of the Departmental Faculty of Ingengineering and scientific director of the project for Ucbm – in order to promote and standardize the use of these technologies in all phases of the patient care pathway, from prevention to the chronic phase of the disease”.
The four operational research units of the Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Campus Bio-Medico (Geriatrics – prof.) are responsible for testing the new devices in the field through clinical studies. Claudio Pedone; Orthopedics and Traumatology – prof. Rocco Papalia; Rehabilitation – prof.ssa Silvia Sterzi; Traumatology – Dr. Giacomo Rizzello; Traumatology and Sports Medicine – prof. Umile Giuseppe Longo) engaged in the project and led by prof. Umile Giuseppe Longo.
The prospect is to lay the foundations for the next generation of robots by promoting research and innovation, to overcome the limits of current rehabilitation tools.