Your New Surgeon? Dr. Robot

Meet Dr. Robot: About the size of a lipstick case, it's able to drive around inside your body and serve as the eyes or hands of a surgeon who could be thousands of miles away.

University of Nebraska researchers have developed the tiny machines, which they say could allow doctors to remotely conduct surgeries in the battlefield or even space.

"We think this is going to replace open surgery," Dr. Dmitry Oleynikov said at a news conference Wednesday. Oleynikov is a specialist in minimally invasive and computer-assisted surgery at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

The tiny, wheeled robots, which are about 3 inches tall, can be slipped into small incisions and computer-controlled by surgeons in different locations. Some are equipped with cameras and lights and can send back images to surgeons. Others have surgical tools allowing them to make incisions, deliver medicine and perform other tasks.

Oleynikov said the robots allow surgeons to operate with more precision, and to see more clearly, than they can with laparoscopic techniques, in which doctors use tools attached to long tubes to conduct minimally invasive surgeries.

Robotic surgical systems already in use in the U.S. use robotic arms that enter the body through small incisions and perform delicate work. The University of Nebraska researchers say their robots are easier to maneuver inside the body, so they may need fewer incisions to work.

On battlefields, the robots could enable surgeons in other places to work on injured soldiers on the front line, said Shane Farritor, a university engineering professor who helped design them.

Researchers said they plan to seek federal regulatory approval early next year for the robots, which are designed for one-time use. Tests on animals have been successful, Oleynikov said, and tests on humans in England will begin in the spring.

Next spring the National Aeronautics and Space Administration plans to teach astronauts to use the robots so that surgeries could one day be performed in space, the researchers said. Delays in communication because of the distance to space would mean surgeons on Earth would have tell astronauts what commands to give the robots, Oleynikov said.

A robot capable of doing biopsies is in the works and another is being designed that can be inserted into a person's stomach via the esophagus.

Researchers said they will be able to create smaller robots once they start making them in larger quantities.

Eventually, Oleynikov said, the tiny robots may enable surgeons to work without ever placing their hands in patients' bodies.

"That's the goal," Oleynikov said. "It's getting easier and easier. We can do even more with these devices."