CALL FOR THE RECRUITMENT OF 4 FULL-TIME RESEARCH ASSISTANTS WITH A TEMPORARY EMPLOYMENT CONTRACT AT CREATE CONSORTIUM IN THE FIELD OF MEDICAL ROBOTICS WITHIN THE ERC SYNERGY GRANT PROJECT ENDOTHERANOSTICS
C.R.E.A.T.E. Consortium (CREATE) seeks 4 full-time Research Assistants (RAs) to work respectively on:
RA1 — Design of Control Interfaces and Architecture
RA2 — Optimal/Nonlinear Control with AI Techniques
RA3 — Soft Robots Modelling and Control
RA4 — Image Elaboration in AI for Robot Navigation
CREATE is a non-profit research organisation possessing a legal personality. According to the Italian law, it belongs to the class of Consorzi, where a number of subjects give life to an independent body intended to reach commonly agreed objectives. CREATE was founded in late 1992 with the aim of establishing a stable link between industry and university.
The current partnership of the consortium includes Ansaldo Nucleare SpA, University of Basilicata, University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, University of Naples Federico II, University of Naples Parthenope, and University of Trieste.
Over the years, CREATE has gained vast experience from participation and coordination of more than twenty FP7 and H2020 European projects in the field or robotics and automation.
Since 20 years a collaboration is active between CREATE and PRISMA Lab (Projects of Industrial and Service Robotics Mechatronics and Automation) in DIETI (Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology) at University of Naples Federico II.
The PRISMA team is committed since 35 years to pursuing research in robotics and automation, and is internationally recognized in the community for their achievements on industrial and service robotics.
The RAs will work with the Medical Robotics Team of the PRISMA group within the project “EndoTheranostics — Multi-sensor Eversion Robot Towards Intelligent Endoscopic Diagnosis and Therapy”. The EndoTheranostics project is one of 37 projects selected for funding from 395 proposals in the ERC Synergy Grant 2022 call, the only one to be funded on robotics.
Project description
EndoTheranostics is a multidisciplinary research project that will revolutionise the theranostics of colorectal cancer (CRC), impacting the quality of life of millions of individuals.
CRC represents a significant proportion of malignant diseases. Interventions are often carried out during the latter stages of development, leading to low patient survival rates and poor quality of life. In 2022 a European Commission report stated that “colonoscopy-based screening has higher sensitivity than testing for blood in stool, but it is less acceptable to participants”. At the same time, effective methods to treat polyps in the colon are limited. Current approaches are often associated with unsafe oncological margins and high complication rates, requiring life-changing surgery.
EndoTheranostics will usher in a new era for screening colonoscopy, advancing the frontiers of medical imaging and robotics. A tip-growing or eversion robot with a sleeve-like structure will be created to extend deep into hollow spaces while perceiving the environment through multimodal imaging and sensing. It will also act as a conduit to transfer miniaturised instruments to the remote site within the colon for diagnosis and therapy (theranostics). With these capabilities, the system will be able to offer:
• painless colon cleansing in preparation for endoscopy
• real-time polyp detection and tissue characterisation through AI-assisted multimodal imaging
• effective removal of polyps by conveying a “miniature mobile operating chamber” equipped with microsurgical tools to the target through the lumen of the eversion robot
EndoTheranostics has the ambition to advance the state-of-the-art in robotics recalling basic research to address a problem so ambitious that it cannnot be dealt with by one team alone. A group of four Principal Investigators (PIs) will work together and bring different skills and resources to tackle ambitious research problems.
The candidate will work in Naples under the supervision of Professor Bruno Siciliano, PI for CREATE and Coordinator of PRISMA Lab, and will take advantage of collaborative partnerships with:
• Professor Alberto Arezzo, Department of Surgical Sciences, University of Torino
• Professor Kaspar Althoefer, School of Engineering and Materials Science, Queen Mary University of London
• Professor Sébastien Ourselin, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King’s College London
Project duration: 6 years (July 2024 — June 2030)
Duration of the contract: 2 years, potentially renewable up to the end of the project
Working place: Medical Lab at ICAROS Center & B2R Lab of PRISMA Team
Salary: 38.000 € gross per year; such amount is higher than Italian fixed-term assistant professors' salary — the project will cover expenses for the research activities related to the offered position (conferences, equipment, etc.)
Application deadline: 20 August 2024 — Please email your application to <Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. E' necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.> with your CV, a motivation letter and at least the names of two references Please include in cc Prof. Bruno Siciliano <Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. E' necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.> and Prof. Fanny Ficuciello <Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. E' necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.>.
Selected candidates will be contacted in due course for online interviews.
For the employment, the candidates are required to possess an Italian Fiscal Code. In addition, non-UE residents are required to possess a valid residence permit (“permesso di soggiorno”) for working purposes.
Required skills for RA1
• PhD degree in mechanical engineering, electronic engineering, computer science, mechatronics, robotics or related fields
• Extensive expertise in haptics, physical human/robot interaction, with a focus on mechatronics, robotics design, and hands-on experience with fabrication techniques
• Knowledge and expertise in dynamics and controls, including hardware implementation
• Knowledge and expertise in multi-level control architecture for master-slave organized systems with haptic interfaces
• Teammate spirit and good communication skills, both verbal and written, essential for explaining technical concepts to non-technical team members and presenting findings to clients or stakeholders
• Problem solving and creativity skills, as crucial for robotics projects mostly involving complex, multi-disciplinary problems and analytical thinking
The candidate will conduct research with the specific objective of complex systems integration and design of control interfaces including haptics for human‒robot shared control and teleoperation; forward interfaces to intuitively map human commands into robot growth movements and backward interfaces to inform the operator about remote robot/environment status. In particular, the candidate should develop in teamwork the architecture and interface allowing the surgeon to control in an integrated manner an eversion robot, an endoluminal
operating chamber and a miniature surgical robot.
Required skills for RA2
• PhD degree in computer engineering, computer science, robotics, or related fields;
• Solid knowledge of optimal and nonlinear control theory blended with practical skills, such as model predictive control, Lyapunov/passivity-based control
• Good familiarity with AI and machine learning, as these technologies are increasingly being used in robotics for advanced control strategies
• Strong programming skills in Python, C++ and/or Matlab; experience with robotics-specific libraries such as ROS (Robot Operating System) also appreciated
• Teammate spirit and good communication skills, both verbal and written, essential for explaining technical concepts to non-technical team members and presenting findings to clients or stakeholders
• Problem solving and creativity skills, as crucial for robotics projects mostly involving complex, multi-disciplinary problems and analytical thinking
The candidate will be asked to tackle the control problems related to supervised autonomous execution of surgical tasks with a miniature robot realized with concentric tubes technology. Endoluminal microsurgical tasks in tight/soft environments will be performed using Intuitive human‒machine cooperation with haptic feedback.
Advanced nonlinear control strategies will be implemented together with data-driven approaches to obtain real-time intraoperative manipulation.
Required skills for RA3
• PhD degree in computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, mechatronics, robotics, or related fields
• Knowledge and expertise in dynamics and kinematics modeling and simulation of deformable objects, with particular focus on soft eversion robots
• Knowledge and expertise in control of soft robots with particular focus on tendon-driven and pneumatic actuation
• Extensive expertise in haptics and physical human‒robot interaction with a focus on soft robot design and hands-on experience with fabrication techniques
• Teammate spirit and good communication skills, both verbal and written, essential for explaining technical concepts to non-technical team members and presenting findings to clients or stakeholders
• Problem solving and creativity skills, as crucial for robotics projects mostly involving complex, multi-disciplinary problems and analytical thinking
The candidate will conduct research on control of the soft eversion robot, requiring a physical model of robot and its interaction with the environment. The robot behaviour will be simulated using the framework SOFA, replicating a colonoscopy process using an eversion robot for studying and analyzing the motions of the robot through the colon.
Required skills for RA4
• PhD degree in computer engineering, computer science, robotics, or related fields
• Solid knowledge of AI and machine learning for medical imaging
• Expertise on computer vision and machine learning for the development of supervised and unsupervised algorithms and deep learning frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, Keras, Deep Reinforcement learning) for deformable 3D reconstruction of endoluminal anatomy
• Knowledge and experience in vision-based predictive control, SLAM methods for endoluminal capsule navigation
• Strong programming skills in Python, C++ and/or Matlab; experience with robotics-specific libraries such as ROS (Robot Operating System) also appreciated
• Teammate spirit and good communication skills, both verbal and written, essential for explaining technical concepts to non-technical team members and presenting findings to clients or stakeholders
• Problem solving and creativity skills, as crucial for robotics projects mostly involving complex, multi-disciplinary problems and analytical thinking
The candidate will be asked to solve control problems related to the vision-based navigation of the eversion robot, as well as the navigation and stabilization of the operating chamber. Furthermore, to generate effective control actions during suturing and dissection, the candidate will enhance perception and extract information from the images to detect tools and track the deformation of the environment. Intelligent and multimodal sensing, including wide-field multispectral imaging, photoacoustic endomicroscopy and all-optical ultrasound imaging will be adopted for in-vivo in-situ detection and characterization of tissue properties.
Living in Naples
Naples is the third-largest city in Italy and is the capital of the Campania region. World-known for its rich history, art, culture, architecture, music, and gastronomy, Naples is a lively, exciting, and bustling city situated on the southwest coast in a gorgeous gulf, and it is surrounded by attractive tourist and archaeological sites such as Capri, Ischia, Amalfi Coast, Pompei, Ercolano, Mount Vesuvius.
The cost of living in Naples is medium-low compared to other Italian and north European cities; see the useful tool to check the local costs of some goods.
Healthcare is provided to all residents (including people with residence permit) by a mixed public-private system. Individuals can access public treatments either for free or by paying a ticket depending on the medical procedures. Several drugs are at low cost. Private healthcare services are also available upon payment of doctor fees.
In general, the cost of renting an apartment ranges from 500 € to 600 € per month (single person), or from 600 € to 900 € per month (family), depending on the number of rooms and the chosen neighborhood.