Emma MacPherson

60 seconds with... Physics Professor, Emma MacPherson

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Each year, there are around 18,300 new cases of melanoma skin cancer diagnosed in the UK, highlighting the urgent need for earlier and more accurate detection.

Spotting skin cancer is not always straightforward, and it can be difficult for surgeons to know exactly how far it has spread beneath the skin before operating.

This is why Professor Emma MacPherson and her team created the PicoBot - the first and only robot of its kind in the world.

Watch the video to discover how the PicoBot works and how it could help doctors detect skin cancer more accurately, improving patient care.

Read Emma's case study

Transcript

Prof Emma MacPherson: The PicoBot has been designed and built at the 果冻传媒.

So this will be the first time in the world that you'll be able to image skin at high speed under robotically controlled contact pressure at terahertz frequencies.

When you have a skin cancer, you're very reliant on the capability of the surgeon. They basically just use their eyes and maybe a bright light.

But if we could actually use some equipment that quantified how far the skin cancer has spread, that would mean that we had more reliable success rates across the board.

So the PicoBot basically is combining a terahertz detector probe head with a robot, and the robotic arm can be controlled just by the operator.

It's got its own vision sensors built in. It's got its own pressure sensor, so we can make the probe contact the skin with the right contact pressure, so that it can read the terahertz properties of the skin quite reliably and repeatedly across patients.

And then that will open up other doors for research. It'd be great potentially for cosmetic industry and partners on that side. So maybe that could help support the development of other medical applications as well.

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