Company

ImmersiveTouch®-SENSIMMER® is built on the vision that an ideal simulator is flexible enough to handle a variety of clinical situations and its building blocks are reusable. Based on this vision ImmersiveTouch-SENSIMMER seeks to become a leading provider of patient specific on-demand surgical simulations from its software and hardware platform. It is currently a leading provider of open surgical simulations. The on-demand haptically enabled virtual anatomical volumes can be created from real patient images such as MRI, CT or a stereo image. The unique features of ImmersiveTouch®-SENSIMMER® include a dynamically collocated virtual reality and haptic workspace, a high resolution display and head tracking. The hardware integrates 3D stereo visualization, force feedback, head and hand tracking, and spatialized 3D audio. The software provides a unified Applications Programming Interface to handle graphics and haptics rendering, 3D audio feedback, interactive menus and buttons.

The company originated from work done as part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology Advanced Technology Program in early 2000's. Over the years the company has worked with beta customers which include major teaching hospitals and medical device makers to develop its products. Currently the company offers open cranial simulations, spinal simulations, haptic anatomical explorations for targeting and feeling areas of interest such as tumors. A beta version of cataract simulation is also under development.

 

Management Team

P. Pat Banerjee, Founder, President/CEO

Pat Banerjee is the co-inventor of the patented ImmersiveTouch surgical simulation technology. He possesses nearly 20 years of experience in virtual reality and haptics research and development and is a Professor of Engineering at University of Illinois at Chicago as well as a visiting faculty in the Department of Surgery at University of Chicago. Both University of Illinois at Chicago and University of Chicago Medical Centers are major validation sites for the ImmersiveTouch technology.

A fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and with over 100 publications, Pat is a leading authority in industrial applications of virtual reality, haptics and telecollaboration. Lately his applications have focused on surgical simulation and rehabilitation engineering.

Pat holds a M.S. and Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University and a B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

Cristian J. Luciano, VP Product Development

Cristian Luciano is the co-inventor of the patented ImmersiveTouch surgical simulation technology. He has over 10 years of experience in various virtual reality and haptics applications and is a Research Assistant Professor at University of Illinois at Chicago concentrating on medical simulation.

Cristian holds a M.S. and Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering, a M.S. in Computer Science - all from University of Illinois at Chicago and a BS in Ingeniería en Sistemas de Información from Universidad Tecnológica Nacional (UTN), Córdoba, Argentina

Praveen Gupta, VP Business Development

Praveen Gupta has authored several books including Business Innovation in the 21st Century, The Innovation solution, Stat Free Six Sigma, Six Sigma Performance Handbook, and Service Scorecard.

Praveen has worked at Motorola, and AT&T Bell Laboratories, and consulted with about 100 small to large size companies through Accelper Consulting. Praveen has taught Operations Management at DePaul University’s MBA program. He teaches Business Innovation at IIT School of Applied Technology of Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago.

Fady T. Charbel, Senior Medical Advisor

Fady Charbel is Head of Neurosurgery at University of Illinois at Chicago and is the first adopter of the ImmersiveTouch technology. Fady is also a serial entrepreneur having commercialized his innovations such as the Charbel Micro-Flowprobe for intracranial surgery (Transonic Systems, Inc.), and the CANVAS/NOVA technology ( VasSol, Inc.). He has been awarded the Inventor of the Year by University of Illinois at Chicago

Fady obtained his MD from St. Joseph’s University, Beirut, Lebanon and has been a leading neurosurgeon for over 20 years.