A portable surgical robot that works inside the MRI — so neurosurgeons can see the brain in real time as they operate.
There is a stubborn problem at the center of brain surgery: the target moves. A surgeon plans a procedure on a pre-operative scan, but the moment the skull is opened and pressure shifts, the brain settles into a slightly different position. The plan is already a little bit wrong. For millimeter-scale work — threading a deep brain stimulation lead, taking a biopsy, ablating a tumor — a little bit wrong is the difference between therapy that works and a repeat pass.
AiM Medical Robotics, a company based in Worcester, Massachusetts, is built around a direct answer to that problem. Instead of relying only on pictures taken before the operation, its robot is designed to work inside the MRI scanner itself, giving the surgeon continuous, real-time imaging of the target during the procedure. The company's tagline — "We Think in Real Time" — is less a slogan than a description of the engineering.
The technology traces back to Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where co-founder Gregory Fischer runs the Automation and Interventional Medicine (AIM) Laboratory. The lab's acronym became the company's name. After years of research into MRI-compatible robotics — hardware that can function safely near a powerful magnet where ordinary metal instruments become hazards — Fischer and neurosurgeon Julie Pilitsis spun the work out into a company in 2018 to bring it toward the operating room.
The mission the company states is concrete: improve outcomes for patients undergoing neurosurgery for functional brain disorders such as Parkinson's disease and epilepsy, and for cancer, while cutting costs for hospitals by reducing errors and procedure time by up to 50%.
"This collaboration accelerates our roadmap toward clinical deployment and reinforces AiM's mission to make MRI-guided neurosurgery faster, safer, and more accessible."— Gregory Fischer, Co-Founder & CEO
A compact robot engineered to operate inside the MRI bore, providing actuated instrument alignment and continuous real-time visualization. It is built to slot into existing MRI suites and operating rooms rather than requiring a new facility.
Robot-assisted placement of neurostimulation leads for Parkinson's disease and other functional brain disorders, aiming for millimeter precision and less procedural variability under live imaging.
The same platform extends to MRI-guided biopsy, tumor and epilepsy ablation, and targeted intracranial delivery of therapeutics — a roadmap that widens the addressable market from one procedure to many.
A software interface developed with Siemens Healthineers lets the robot exchange data and operate with Siemens MAGNETOM scanners, including 0.55T, 1.5T and 3T models and the MAGNETOM Free.XL.
Existing stereotactic and robotic neurosurgery systems — platforms like ROSA Brain, neuromate and Stealth Autoguide — are capable and widely used, but they generally operate outside the scanner and lean on imaging captured before or between steps. AiM's bet is that keeping the imaging live, throughout the procedure, changes what is possible.
The claimed payoff runs in two directions at once. For patients, real-time targeting means fewer errors and less time under anesthesia. For hospitals, shorter procedures — the company targets up to a 50% reduction — mean lower cost per case and better use of expensive MRI and OR time. It is a rare pitch that aligns the clinical and financial argument in the same sentence.
AiM's credibility rests on pairing deep robotics research with clinical neurosurgery from the start — not bolting one onto the other later.
Gregory S. Fischer, PhD — Co-founder, President and CEO. A robotics engineering professor at WPI and director of its AIM Laboratory, Fischer earned his PhD at Johns Hopkins within the NSF Engineering Research Center for Computer Integrated Surgery. He is a recognized pioneer of MRI-compatible surgical robotics and has drawn NIH funding, including a $3M award for robotic brain-cancer treatment.
Julie G. Pilitsis, MD, PhD, MBA — Co-founder and chair of the medical advisory board. A functional neurosurgeon who served as president of the American Society for Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery (2024–2026), she anchors the clinical side of the design.
Dr. Yulun Wang — Board member since 2026. The founder of Computer Motion and architect of the AESOP and ZEUS systems — the latter enabling the first transatlantic remote surgery — Wang brings four decades of turning surgical-robotics concepts into scaled, commercially adopted products.
AiM is a classic B2B medical device business. Revenue will come from placing its robotic systems in hospitals and neurosurgical centers, plus the disposables, service and software that surround them — all contingent on regulatory clearance. Today the company is pre-commercial, funded by a mix of venture, strategic, grant and impact capital while it works through clinical validation.
The investor list is telling. Alongside venture firms IQ Capital and 1540 Ventures sit mission-aligned backers: Cancer Research Horizons (the commercial arm of Cancer Research UK) and the Sontag Innovation Fund, both focused on brain-cancer impact. When that kind of money shows up, it signals a company whose market and mission point the same way.
Bars scaled to total funding to date. Figures per company and press releases.
Gregory Fischer joins Worcester Polytechnic Institute and starts the Automation and Interventional Medicine Laboratory researching MRI-compatible surgical robots.
Fischer and neurosurgeon Julie Pilitsis spin the technology out of WPI to commercialize MRI-guided robotic neurosurgery.
The team performs a cadaver trial of MRI-guided bilateral DBS lead placement at WPI's PracticePoint accelerator.
IQ Capital and 1540 Ventures lead a round to advance the robot toward clearance and commercialization.
AiM signs a collaboration with Siemens Healthineers for MAGNETOM integration and adds pioneer Yulun Wang to its board.