After a week at the Hamlyn Symposium on Medical Robotics, I’ve been reflecting on this year’s theme: “Back to the Future: Telesurgery in 2025.”
The first telesurgery took place on September 7, 2001, between New York and Strasbourg, France — using a robotic system that would later evolve under Intuitive Surgical. For over two decades, telesurgery remained more concept than reality.
Until this month.
In June 2025, the first FDA-approved telesurgery was successfully performed between Florida and Luanda, Angola. The tech has matured — and so have the use cases. I’ll admit I arrived a skeptic: surgeons are already overloaded, and remote cases add new complexity. But after this week at Imperial College, I see the future more clearly. Telesurgery’s near-term value is especially strong for training, supervision, and specialist support in regions where care gaps persist.
The trajectory feels familiar. When I entered university in 2005, fluorescence-guided surgery had just received its first FDA clearance. Since 2021, new agents have been approved, and imaging systems are evolving across form factors — from handhelds to robotic platforms.
At QUEL Imaging, we’re focused on accelerating this clinical translation. We <3 fluorescence, but <3 speeding up its adoption even more.
| 2016 - 6-months into my PhD. ✔️Gloves. ✔️Lab coat, ✔️safety glasses, ✔️Pipet, ✔️Huge graduated cylinder, ✔️Glass beaker,✔️(labeled and covered) Falcon tubes, ✔️Print-out of Python code for weights and volumes, ✔️IV bag of Intralipid, ✔️Selfie to proof |
At the begining of my PhD (coming from working in software development and telecom industry for the previous 5 years), I was tasked with testing a fluorescence imaging system. The instruction: “Make a serial dilution phantom.”
I Googled every term:
I wrote Python scripts to calculate the dilution volumes, suited up in (too-much) PPE, and spent hours mixing and imaging. It was not fun. It was not fast. I repeated it (begrudgingly) throughout grad school.
Back to the Future
Today, QUEL Imaging manufactures solid Concentration Targets that replicate common clinical fluorophores like ICG, pafolacianine, IRDye 800CW, SGM-101, and Cy5.5 — with consistent optical properties and no mess.
Last week, we asked Edwin, our optical engineer, to use a concentration target to simulate a serial dilution on one of our systems.
⏱ Total time: under 3 minutes — from measurement to data!
<3 Fluorescence. <3 Speed. <3 Not cleaning expired (chunky) phantoms out of the fridge.
Our biggest competition is still the status quo. Anyone can build a phantom — and they should, once. But in industry or clinical R&D, your time is better spent solving the bigger problems.
📹 Check out the YouTube Short to see the proof:
And if you’re ready to move faster and get out of serial dilutions, we’d love to help! Please contact us