At AcuSurgical, developing LUCA starts with a continuous dialogue between retinal surgeons, engineers and clinical teams.
Retinal surgery leaves little room for approximation. Surgeons operate inside the eye, manipulating delicate tissues and performing movements at a microscopic scale. Precision and stability are essential, in procedures that can also be physically demanding.
This is the environment LUCA was designed for.
At AcuSurgical, developing robotic assistance for vitreoretinal surgery has therefore never been an engineering project alone. It relies on continuous collaboration between surgeons, engineers, product and clinical teams.
Surgeons understand the surgical gesture and the reality of the operating room. Engineers explore how technology can support them. Between the two is a constant cycle of observation, testing, feedback and iteration.
Start with the surgeon, not the technology
Before asking what a robot can do, the first question is: what do retinal surgeons actually need?
For Antoine Morel, AcuSurgical’s Senior Surgical Robotics Technology Lead, conversations alone are not enough. Surgeons interact with proofs of concept, mock-ups and prototypes, confronting engineering ideas with their own clinical experience.
This is often where the details that really matter emerge.
And there is no single operating-room reality. Practices, equipment and workflows vary between surgeons, hospitals and countries. Technology needs to adapt to that clinical environment, not the other way around.
Turning feedback into technology
Once a need is identified, several technical solutions may be possible.
LUCA is being developed to provide robotic assistance for vitreoretinal surgery, with capabilities including precise instrument control and motion scaling. The challenge is determining which technical choices best respond to the surgical gesture and its environment.
For Alonso Sanchez, Surgical Robotics Specialist, this is where surgeon feedback becomes particularly valuable.
“Negative feedback is not a rejection — it is a diagnosis.”
When a surgeon is dissatisfied with a maneuver, understanding why can point directly toward the next iteration.
And this leads to one of Alonso’s key observations:
“The biggest challenge is not technical. It is choosing.”
A solution must balance the surgical need with technology maturity, existing OR equipment, workflow and regulatory requirements.
Making LUCA fit the operating room
Technical performance alone is not enough.
For Charlène Braun, Clinical Team Manager, the Clinical team plays a key role in connecting surgeons, clinical practice and LUCA’s development. Together with Julie Brucker and Margaux Roux, the team accompanies LUCA across both clinical validation and its integration into the operating room.
For Margaux, who recently joined AcuSurgical as Clinical Application Engineer, this means acting as an interface between clinical practice and the teams developing LUCA: listening to surgeons and OR staff, understanding their experience and bringing those insights back to Product and R&D.
A surgical robot cannot simply expect the operating room to reorganize around it. It has to find its place within an already complex and highly dynamic environment.
That requires integration, usability and trust as much as technology.
From innovation to clinical evidence
At the same time, innovation needs to be supported by rigorous clinical evidence.
The Clinical team works on the clinical and regulatory pathway accompanying LUCA’s development: from clinical study design and documentation to study monitoring, data quality and analysis.
As Charlène explains, one of the central challenges is bringing together two different dynamics:
“Engineering is iterative. Clinical validation is rigorous. The challenge is to make both progress together.”
A continuous loop
LUCA’s development is therefore not a straight journey from the lab to the operating room.
It is a continuous loop:
Clinical need → Prototype → Surgeon feedback → Engineering decision → Iteration → OR integration → Clinical evidence
And the surgeon remains part of that journey throughout.
As Alonso puts it:
“The robot is a tool in the hands of an expert who remains the decision-maker.”
For AcuSurgical, the opportunity lies in bringing together what surgeons understand about operating inside the eye with what robotics can bring to microsurgery.
Because building LUCA is not simply about building a more sophisticated machine.