Founder · Engineer · Neurosurgical Robotics
Gregory Fischer
He spent twenty years teaching robots to work inside an MRI machine. Now he is putting one next to the neurosurgeon.
Co-Founder & CEO, AiM Medical Robotics · Worcester, MA
He spent twenty years teaching robots to work inside an MRI machine. Now he is putting one next to the neurosurgeon.
Co-Founder & CEO, AiM Medical Robotics · Worcester, MA
Gregory Fischer runs a company built around a single stubborn idea: that a surgeon operating deep inside the brain should be able to see what is happening right now, not what a scan showed hours earlier. As co-founder and CEO of AiM Medical Robotics, based in Worcester, Massachusetts, he is developing a compact, portable robot that works inside an MRI scanner and guides instruments to targets a fraction of a millimeter wide.
The problem he is chasing is easy to state and hard to solve. Most surgery today relies on images captured before the procedure begins. But the brain is soft and it shifts. Fluid drains, pressure changes, tissue moves. The map a surgeon planned against is no longer the territory they are cutting into.
"While it sounds obvious, image guidance during surgery is often unavailable in many procedures today," Fischer has said. "Procedures are typically performed using stale images acquired days, hours, or minutes earlier. But tissues move, targets shift, and what you planned for isn't always what you find once you begin."
His answer is to put the imaging and the robot in the same room, working together. AiM's platform integrates actuated instrument alignment into the existing clinical workflow while enabling continuous, real-time visualization during surgery. In plain terms: the machine that takes the picture and the machine that holds the tool are no longer separate steps.
The standard Fischer sets for that machine is unforgiving. "In neurosurgery, submillimeter accuracy is often necessary to maximize benefits and minimize side effects," he explains. "But that's not submillimeter with respect to the skull; it's relative to the soft tissue anatomical targets deep inside the brain. Whether you're placing a neurostimulator lead, taking a biopsy, ablating a tumor, or injecting a therapy, precision is key."
Building any robot that operates inside an MRI is one of the harder constraints in the field. Strong magnetic fields rule out the ordinary metals and electric motors most robots depend on. For most of his career, Fischer worked on exactly this class of problem - not as a product, but as research.
“Tissues move, targets shift, and what you planned for isn't always what you find once you begin.” Gregory Fischer, Co-Founder & CEO, AiM Medical Robotics
Fischer joined Worcester Polytechnic Institute after earning his PhD at Johns Hopkins, where his doctoral work was part of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Computer Integrated Surgery. At WPI he founded and led the Automation and Interventional Medicine (AIM) Robotics Research Laboratory.
Testing MRI-compatible devices needs an MRI suite and an operating room, so Fischer founded PracticePoint, a Massachusetts state-supported medtech R&D accelerator with clinical-grade facilities including an OR and a 3T MRI suite.
AiM Medical Robotics leverages technology from Fischer's NIH-funded research. In March 2023 he stepped in as CEO, with former chief executive Robert Cathcart named executive chairman, moving from the university lab to lead the company full-time.
The through-line of Fischer's career is patience with a problem most people would have abandoned. He holds four engineering degrees - dual bachelor's degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and both a master's and a doctorate from Johns Hopkins. He was named the William Smith Dean's Professor at WPI in 2017 and elected a Senior Member of the National Academy of Inventors in 2019.
He helped build WPI's Robotics Engineering program, among the first of its kind in the United States, and has authored more than 130 peer-reviewed publications, including over 40 journal manuscripts and book chapters on image-guided surgical robotics. That body of work is not a side note to the company. It is the company's origin.
Earns dual BS degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Completes PhD in mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins as part of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Computer Integrated Surgery.
Joins Worcester Polytechnic Institute, helps build its Robotics Engineering program, and founds the AIM Robotics Research Laboratory.
Named William Smith Dean's Professor at WPI.
Elected a Senior Member of the National Academy of Inventors.
Appointed CEO of AiM Medical Robotics, moving from academia to lead the company.
AiM closes an $8.1 million Series A financing to fund its first-in-human clinical study.
The 2025 Series A was led by IQ Capital and 1540 Ventures, with participation from WPI, brain-cancer impact investors including the Sontag Innovation Fund and Cancer Research Horizons, and angel groups such as New York Angels and Harvard Business School Alumni Angels.
Proceeds fund AiM's first-in-human clinical study, expand partnerships, and accelerate regulatory milestones, with first patient enrollment described as on the horizon.
The platform is aimed at Parkinson's disease and a range of cranial procedures - tumor biopsy, cancer and epilepsy ablation, and targeted intracranial drug delivery.
He is the co-founder and CEO of AiM Medical Robotics and a longtime robotics engineering professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, known for pioneering MRI-compatible surgical robotics.
It develops a compact, portable, MRI-compatible surgical robot that provides real-time image guidance and robotic precision for neurosurgical procedures such as biopsies, ablations, and deep brain stimulation lead placement.
He holds dual BS degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an MSE and PhD from Johns Hopkins University, where his doctoral work was part of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Computer Integrated Surgery.
AiM closed an $8.1 million Series A round in September 2025, led by IQ Capital and 1540 Ventures, with total funding reported around $13 million.
Most surgery relies on images taken before the procedure, but brain tissue shifts during surgery. An MRI-compatible robot lets surgeons see live images and adjust in real time, improving precision on deep, moving targets.