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C.M. Heunis (Christoff)

Researcher (Guest)
ET-BE-SR
Horst Complex Z136
c.m.heunis@utwente.nl
+31534891307
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Christoff joined the Surgical Robotics Lab in January 2017 to pursue a doctoral degree. He recently graduated and is continuing his research as a postdoctoral fellow

He is trained to adapt and integrate embedded sub-systems for health care applications, with a specific focus on surgical robotics, magnetic actuation systems, and medical image processing. His research includes designing clinical equipment for the treatment of endovascular, cardiovascular, and oncological disorders.

Born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, he received his Bachelor in Mechatronic Engineering in 2014 from the University of Stellenbosch. Here, he also obtained his M.Eng in Biomedical Engineering in 2016 as part of the Biomedical Engineering Research Group (BERG).

Recently, Christoff has co-founded a spinoff company, Flux Robotics, aiming to commercialize robots that assist surgeons during magnetic surgeries. 

Fields of interest

  • Biomedical Engineering
  • Continuum Robotics
  • Mechatronic Design
  • Medical Image Processing

Expertise

  • Computer Science

    • Robotics
    • Ultrasound
    • Procedures
    • Robot

  • Medicine and Dentistry

    • Catheter
    • Clinician

  • Physics

    • Magnetic Fields
    • Targets

Organisations

The current practice of endovascular procedures is limited by a number of factors. These factors include patient-specific operation requirements, high-risk surgery procedures, and time-consuming operations. As a solution, continuum manipulators with a focus on magnetically actuated surgical catheters, have been introduced to the field of surgical robotics. These instruments are manually inserted into the body, duct, or vessel and can be used for fluid drainage, disease treatment or to reach certain sites in the body for targeted drug delivery.

Manual insertion and maneuvering of steerable catheters can be accomplished via tendon actuation and guidewires. However, limitations like buckling and friction of the tendons and cables tend to surface. Consequently, magnetically-controlled catheter actuation and navigation systems, or magnetic manipulation systems (MMS), have been introduced. Using magnetic systems to steer catheters allow for high-precision steering in the endovascular network, less radiation exposure and shorter operation durations than conventional navigation systems. Moreover, they have proven to provide enhanced dexterity to clinicians performing minimally invasive surgical procedures, showing higher success rates after surgeries and providing enlarged workspaces. My goal is to explore these advantages by means of controlling magnetically-actuated catheters inside a clinically relevant experimental setup suitable for endovascular surgeries. 

Publications

2023
The Flux One Magnetic Navigation System: A Preliminary Assessment for Stent Implantation, 5640-5647. Heunis, C. M., Silva, B., Sereni, G., Lam, M. C. W., Belakhal, B., Gaborit, A., Wermelink, B., Geelkerken, B. R. H. & Misra, S.https://doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2023.3289108A Magnetic Bio-Inspired Soft Carrier as a Temperature-Controlled Gastrointestinal Drug Delivery System, Article 2200559. Heunis, C. M., Wang, Z., de Vente, G., Misra, S. & Kalpathy Venkiteswaran, V.https://doi.org/10.1002/mabi.202200559
2022
Intravascular tracking of micro-agents using medical ultrasound: Towards clinical applications, Article 9780008, 3739-3747. Suligoj, F., Heunis, C. M., Mohanty, S. & Misra, S.https://doi.org/10.1109/TBME.2022.3176746Design and Evaluation of a Magnetic Rotablation Catheter for Arterial Stenosis, 1761-1772. Heunis, C. M., Behrendt, K. J., Hekman, E. E. G., Moers, C., de Vries, J.-P. P. M. & Misra, S.https://doi.org/10.1109/TMECH.2021.3092608SonoTweezer: An acoustically-powered end-effector for underwater micromanipulation, 988-997. Mohanty, S., Fidder, R. J., Matos, P. M., Heunis, C. M., Kaya, M., Blanken, N. & Misra, S.https://doi.org/10.1109/TUFFC.2022.3140745
2021
A Flexible Catheter System for Ultrasound-Guided Magnetic Projectile Delivery, Article 9620197. Sikorski, J., Heunis, C. M., Obeid, R., Kalpathy Venkiteswaran, V. & Misra, S.https://doi.org/10.1109/TRO.2021.3123865Advanced Robotics for Magnetic Manipulation: The Mobile Magnetic Vascular Surgeon. University of Twente. Heunis, C. M.https://doi.org/10.3990/1.9789036551656Real-time multi-modal sensing and feedback for catheterization in porcine tissue, Article 273, 1-21. Heunis, C. M., Šuligoj, F., Santos, C. F. & Misra, S.https://doi.org/10.3390/s21010273RobUSt-An Autonomous Robotic Ultrasound System for Medical Imaging, 67456-67465. Suligoj, F., Heunis, C. M., Sikorski, J. & Misra, S.https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3077037
2020
Collaborative Surgical Robots: Optical Tracking During Endovascular Surgery, Article 9042842, 29-44. Heunis, C. M., Belchiorinho Farola Marques Barata, B., Phillips Furtado, G. & Misra, S.https://doi.org/10.1109/MRA.2020.2976300The ARMM system - Autonomous steering of magnetically-actuated catheters: Towards endovascular applications. Heunis, C. M., Wotte, Y. P., Sikorski, J., Phillips Furtado, G. & Misra, S.Reconstructing Endovascular Catheter Interaction Forces in 3D using Multicore Optical Shape SensorsIn 2019 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (pp. 5419-5425). Heunis, C. M., Belfiore, V., Vendittelli, M. & Misra, S.https://doi.org/10.1109/IROS40897.2019.8968448The ARMM System - Autonomous Steering of Magnetically-Actuated Catheters: Towards Endovascular Applications, Article 8954825, 705-712. Heunis, C. M., Wotte, Y. P., Sikorski, J., Furtado, G. P. & Misra, S.https://doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2020.2965077
2019
The ARMM System: Demonstrating Clinical Feasibility in Steering Magnetically Actuated Catheters in Endovascular Applications, 3360. Heunis, C. M., Sikorski, J., Phillips Furtado, G. & Misra, S.The ARMM system: An optimized mobile electromagnetic coil for non-linear actuation of flexible surgical instruments. Sikorski, J., Heunis, C. M., Franco, F. & Misra, S.https://doi.org/10.1109/TMAG.2019.2917370

Research profiles

ARMM - Advanced Robotics for Magnetic Manipulation (02/2017 – Present)
Developed a novel and highly-versatile system for the magnetic actuation of endovascular surgical instruments.

Address

University of Twente

Horst Complex (building no. 20), room Z136
De Horst 2
7522 LW Enschede
Netherlands

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