The CISST ERC is a collaborative venture which focuses industry and NSF resources in the research, educational and clinical facilities of six prominent institutions in three university-hospital teams.

The Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions

As the lead institution, Johns Hopkins University serves as CISST ERC headquarters with offices located at its Homewood campus in Baltimore, Maryland. It is also the site of extensive surgical CAD/CAM and surgical assistance robotics laboratories. The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine provides image overlay and general radiological laboratories, as well as the Microsurgery Advanced Design Laboratory within the Wilmer Eye Institute. The Brady Urological Institute at its Bayview Campus assists by providing fully-equipped CNC facilities for robotic design and fabrication.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Medical image analysis is conducted in the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology using advanced tracking equipment and other devices to develop segmentation, registration and tracking algorithms. In the Surgical Planning Lab at The Brigham and Women’s Hospital, computer science and MRI radiology are combined to develop systems that provide real-time three dimensional imaging of patients during surgical procedures.

Carnegie Mellon University and Shadyside Hospital

Formed in 1993 to foster the use of robotic technologies in medicine, the Center for Medical Robotics and Computer Assisted Surgery (MRCAS) at Carnegie Mellon University brings physicians and researchers together within the Robotics Institute. Working in its own laboratory and in dedicated space within the university’s Computer Vision Laboratory, MRCAS develops technologies that are then applied clinically through its sister laboratory, the Center for Orthopaedic Research at Shadyside Hospital.