Dr. Nicholas Panetta said a new robotic microsurgery device coming to USF will bring cutting-edge technology to cancer-related surgery.

Panetta is the director of the USF Cancer Related Lymphedema Program and the chair for USF’s department of Plastic Surgery in the Morsani College of Medicine. 

He said the Symani Surgical System is the “smallest motion scaling robot that’s ever been invented for surgical application.”

The university and Tampa General Hospital will receive the device from Medical Microinstruments, Inc. (MMI), an Italian surgical robotics company headquartered in Jacksonville.

Though Panetta isn’t sure when the university will receive the device, he expects to start treating patients with it by spring 2025.

Related: College of Nursing expansion will address nursing shortage in Florida, dean says 

Panetta said the robot allows surgeons to scale hand motions down to a level where they can accurately tie sutures smaller than a millimeter. He said the device will expand training opportunities for a new USF microsurgery fellowship that will launch in July 2025.

“It’s going to give medical students or people interested in going into plastic or reconstructive surgery an opportunity to see potential applications of this technology that they wouldn’t be able to see at other medical schools or from an undergrad standpoint,” he said.

The microsurgery device is the first-of-its-kind to be introduced to healthcare in the Southeast and will make Florida just one of five states using the device, according to USF. 

USF President Rhea Law signed the agreement with Dr. Eduardo Sotomayor, TGH Cancer Institute Executive Director, and MMI CEO Mark Toland during a ceremony overseen by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in Italy, where MMI was founded.

“This unique and exciting partnership brings together the very best from both academic medicine and private industry to achieve progress in health care for Floridians who otherwise would not have access to this innovative surgical system in our state,” Law said in the press release.

Related: OPINION: Telehealth is taking the essence of medicine out of Tampa health care 

The device was one of the five robotic inventions listed on TIME’s Best Inventions of 2024 list. It was approved for commercialization in the country by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in April.

MMI was founded in 2015 to improve accuracy and precision in microsurgery by developing the “world’s smallest wristed instrument” and is responsible for making the device.

The Morsani College of Medicine and TGH have been affiliated since the college’s opening in the early 1970s, according to USF. USF medical students, nurses and physical therapy students receive some training at TGH.

Panetta said the partnership with MMI brings together “interesting clinical skill sets and clinical problems with really important advances in biotechnology and engineering.”

Related: USF students feel burnout after hurricanes: ‘We’re all playing catch up’ – The Oracle 

The collaboration is a good example of how different fields of interest can come together to address difficult and challenging clinical issues for patients, Panetta said. 

Panetta will be the lead clinician responsible for performing surgeries using the device and overseeing students, trainees and residents who are learning to perform surgery with it.

The device is going to be applied on lymphatic surgery first, Panetta said. He said the device is a “huge benefit” for the treatment of patients who develop cancer-related lymphedema, a life-long and debilitating condition.

Panetta said the device will improve doctors’ ability to reconstruct tissues damaged by lymphedema or prevent lymphedema from occurring.