Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) has received $2 million from the Healey-Driscoll administration to expand PracticePoint and create a Medical Innovation and Training Center focused on advancing medical robotics.
The award is part of $6.6 million in grants announced through the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative’s RoboBench program. The statewide initiative is designed to give robotics companies and researchers access to the specialized facilities, equipment, and resources needed to test technologies, prepare prototypes for manufacturing, and bring new products to market.
WPI will develop the center in partnership with UMass Chan Medical School. It will provide specialized space for developing and testing medical robotics, while creating closer connections among engineers, entrepreneurs, and clinicians. The center will also support hands-on training for nurses and medical residents using robotic technologies.
“State support is essential to building the shared research infrastructure that transforms promising ideas into technologies capable of improving lives,” said Andrew Sears, WPI senior vice president of academic affairs and provost. “This investment will draw on the complementary strengths of WPI and UMass Chan Medical School, help address a critical gap in medical robotics commercialization, and strengthen Central Massachusetts’ role in the commonwealth’s innovation economy.”
PracticePoint is WPI’s life sciences training and research and development facility, offering clinical spaces and expertise for the design, prototyping, testing, and real-world evaluation of health technologies and surgical innovations.
"This funding will enable PracticePoint to evolve into a Medical Innovation and Training Center, providing the unique environments and capabilities needed to develop, evaluate, and demonstrate medical robotic technologies. It will also facilitate clinical adoption of these new technologies, ultimately enabling the transformation of patient care through medical robotics,” said Liaohai Leo Chen, director of PracticePoint. “Just as importantly, the new center will bring innovators into closer collaboration with clinicians and provide nurses and medical residents with hands-on experience using emerging robotic systems. That feedback and training are critical to ensuring new technologies work effectively in real healthcare settings.”
Read the Healey-Driscoll administration’s full funding announcement.
