VIMA founder Dr. Marc Dean, partners with NASA in developing surgical capabilities to support colonization of the moon and a mission to Mars.
Leaning back into his chair, arms crossed behind his head, Dr. Marc Dean ponders out loud about developing a humanoid robot that could perform surgical procedures overseas and someday in outer space.
“Imagine sitting here in my office in Fort Worth and operating on someone on the moon,” he said. “The moon is potentially possible.”
Dean, a board certified otolaryngologist (ear, nose and throat or ENT), specializes in ear and sinus disease and disorders of the Eustachian tube. Originally from Colorado, he graduated from high school in Houston. He earned a bachelor’s degree in bioinformatics from Baylor University and his medical degree from Texas Tech University Health Science Center. He went on to complete an internship in general surgery – he’s also trained in robotics surgery – and his residency in otolaryngology/head and neck surgery at Louisiana State University Health Science Center in Shreveport. He continues to serve on the faculty there as well as at Texas Tech.
A member of Texas Health Care, a multi-specialty physician group practice, Dean has been in private practice since 2011 with Fort Worth Ear and Sinus. His wife, Dr. Carolina Escobar, specializes in blood and marrow transplantation at Texas Oncology in Dallas.
“I don’t know what drew me to medicine,” Dean, 37, said. “I always wanted to be an astronaut. In the sixth grade I was told I’d be too tall to be an astronaut.”
Dean stands at 6 feet, 3 inches today. “So I decided to be a doctor. I don’t know why but I wanted to do pediatrics,” he said. “I had a mentor who asked me what kind of surgery I was going to do. I said I wasn’t doing surgery, I was going to be a pediatrician. But he said I should be a surgeon with my skills and my attitude. Once I watched surgery, I fell in love with it.”
Dean is well-known in the ENT medical community for his passion for both telemedicine and integrating new technologies into the practice of medicine. A lead researcher in clinical trials for numerous new medical devices, he is also involved in developing breakthrough procedures to help eliminate ear disease.
He founded the Vitruvio Institute of Medical Advancement (VIMA), a nonprofit organization that focuses on the development of new treatments for ear, sinus and Eustachian tube disorders. As chairman and medical director, Dean frequently lectures internationally on both the use of telemedicine and the surgical treatment of Eustachian tube disorders.
“The institute was a vehicle for me to do research. But its main focus is tying technology into medicine,” he said. “Technology is the key to improving access, opportunity and quality of life for patients even in the most remote parts of the globe.”
Outside of his medical practice and R&D activity, over the past few years Dean has made several philanthropic medical mission trips with the International Medical Group, working with collaborating sponsors World Surgical Foundation, Operation Hope, American Hepato- Pancreato-Biliary Association and the American Kurdish Medical Group.
He has treated poor and underserved patients in Vietnam, Panama, Nicaragua, Haiti and Iraqi Kurdistan, where he helped establish a hospital that uses telemedicine technology to treat Syrian refugees and train Iraqi doctors in U.S. standards and best practices. Through a tele- fellowship he created in the region, Iraqi physicians can observe and learn from his surgical procedures via streaming technology. In return, Dean can watch their surgical procedures and advise the doctors stateside.
“When I went to Iraq in 2011 I really re-found my love for medicine,” Dean said. “In 2012, the prime minister asked us to help set up a hospital. We developed a telemedicine-based concept so we could watch and train from here. The only thing we couldn’t do was operate so we’d fly back and forth to operate. All of us are robotics trained but robotic surgery was never developed to be done through telemedicine.”
Full circle
The research and development Dean is now leading may change the future of teleoperated robotic surgery – as well as the future of medicine.
While on a trip to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Dean saw the teleoperated Robonaut (the next-generation R2), a humanoid robot created by NASA and car manufacturer General Motors. Built to look like a person, Robonaut has a head, torso, arms and hands. Cameras in the head provide vision while the robot’s hands and fingers move like a person’s. Using remote control, an operator can make Robonaut perform certain tasks. A Robonaut is currently assisting astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
“When I saw Robonaut I thought, ‘I can operate with this,’” said Dean. “They laughed and said I couldn’t but I knew I probably could. Only thing is, Robonaut’s hands are too big. It’s designed to do all of the tasks on the space station that an astronaut would do. We’d have to modify the hands for surgery. That’s what we’re working on now.”
Working with NASA, Dean is part of a study group developing surgical capabilities to support colonization of the moon and a mission to Mars. His role is advising on a humanoid robot that would eventually perform surgical procedures on the space station.
Dean has teamed up with Dr. Brian Dunkin, an endoscopic surgeon and medical director of the Houston Methodist Institute for Technology, Innovation and Education (MITIE), one of the largest surgical education and research facilities in the world. They secured a grant from
Houston-based Pumps & Pipes, an association of medical, energy, aerospace, academic and community professionals and leaders that promotes cross-industry collaboration to solve problems, and took a Robonaut to MITIE for research and testing to make it more medically- oriented to perform surgeries. The research partners also are working with Stephen R. Igo, director of the Entrepreneurial Institute at Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center and the robotics department.
“Brian’s interest is in telementoring. He wants to use Robonaut to train other surgeons, which is a perfect fit for what we’re trying to do in Kurdistan,” Dean said.
“The idea of modifying Robonaut’s hands, which were originally designed to manipulate mechanical tools, would be the exact opposite direction of where robotics are going today. Right now robotic surgeries are becoming more and more specialized – endoscopic, minimally invasive and specialized,” Dean said. “Basically, you can do the same thing with this. You can do surgery remotely using just Robonaut’s hands.”
The researchers are seeking funding for their project, which could take several years to reach market. Dean remains hopeful.
“It’s been fun. I’m coming full circle. I’m getting back to being an astronaut,” he said. “If we get funding for this they’ll have to test it in low gravity. After that, we’d qualify for the space program. I might end up being an astronaut after all.”
