Dr. Frederic Moll (born 1952) is a

medical device A medical device is any device intended to be used for medical purposes. Significant potential for hazards are inherent when using a device for medical purposes and thus medical devices must be proved safe and effective with reasonable assura ...

developer and

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

, specializing in the field of

medical robot A medical robot is a robot used in the medical sciences. They include surgical robots. These are in most telemanipulators, which use the surgeon's activators on one side to control the "effector" on the other side. Types * Surgical robots: These ...

ics.

Early life and education

Moll's mother and father were both

pediatricians Pediatrics ( also spelled ''paediatrics'' or ''pædiatrics'') is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. In the United Kingdom, paediatrics covers many of their youth until the ...

. He was raised in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

where he attended Lakeside School and was schoolmates with

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

cofounders

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...

and

Paul Allen Paul Gardner Allen (January 21, 1953 – October 15, 2018) was an American business magnate, computer programmer, researcher, investor, and philanthropist. He co-founded Microsoft Corporation with childhood friend Bill Gates in 1975, which h ...

, graduating in 1969. Moll then attended the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

where he earned a

B.A. degree Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate education, undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally complet ...

, before going to the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

to earn his M.D. degree.

Career

During his surgical residency at

Virginia Mason Medical Center Virginia Mason Medical Center is an integrated hospital, training and research facility located in Seattle, Washington, USA. It was the founding location, in 1920, of the private, non-profit Virginia Mason health organization; in January 2021, the ...

in the early 1980s, Moll says he was “struck by the size of the incision and injury created just to get inside the body.” He left his residency to develop the safety

trocar A trocar (or trochar) is a medical or veterinary device that is made up of an awl (which may be a metal or plastic sharpened or non-bladed tip), a cannula (essentially a hollow tube), and a seal. Trocars are placed through the abdomen during lap ...

, which helped make general

laparoscopic surgery Laparoscopy () is an operation performed in the abdomen or pelvis using small incisions (usually 0.5–1.5 cm) with the aid of a camera. The laparoscope aids diagnosis or therapeutic interventions with a few small cuts in the abdomen.Medl ...

possible, and funded - and later sold - two medical equipment businesses in

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...

: Endotherapeutics (acquired by United States Surgical) and Origin Medsystems (acquired by

Eli Lilly Eli Lilly (July 8, 1838 – June 6, 1898) was an American soldier, pharmacist, chemist, and businessman who founded the Eli Lilly and Company pharmaceutical corporation. Lilly enlisted in the Union Army during the American Civil War and r ...

). He also obtained an M.S. degree in business management from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. Following its acquisition by Eli Lilly, Origin MedSystem became an operating company within

Guidant Guidant Corporation, part of Boston Scientific and Abbott Labs, designs and manufactures artificial cardiac pacemakers, implantable cardioverter-defibrillators, stents, and other cardiovascular medical products. Their company headquarters is loc ...

in 1992. Moll served as medical director of Guidant's surgical division until 1995. During this time, he became certain that

robotics Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrat ...

could help to make routine surgery less invasive, and in 1995 left Guidant to found

Intuitive Surgical Intuitive Surgical, Inc. is an American corporation that develops, manufactures, and markets robotic products designed to improve clinical outcomes of patients through minimally invasive surgery, most notably with the da Vinci Surgical System, ''d ...

with John Freund and Rob Younge. Since this time, Intuitive has worked on developing

minimally-invasive Minimally invasive procedures (also known as minimally invasive surgeries) encompass surgical techniques that limit the size of incisions needed, thereby reducing wound healing time, associated pain, and risk of infection. Surgery by definition ...

, robotic assisted tools and platforms, including the da Vinci system for robotic-assisted surgical procedures. Moll left Intuitive Surgical in 2002 to become founder & CEO of Hansen Medical, which developed robotic systems for

vascular The blood vessels are the components of the circulatory system that transport blood throughout the human body. These vessels transport blood cells, nutrients, and oxygen to the tissues of the body. They also take waste and carbon dioxide away f ...

and interventional

electrophysiology Electrophysiology (from Greek , ''ēlektron'', "amber" etymology of "electron"">Electron#Etymology">etymology of "electron" , ''physis'', "nature, origin"; and , '' -logia'') is the branch of physiology that studies the electrical properties of b ...

procedures, and a robotically steered

catheter In medicine, a catheter (/ˈkæθətər/) is a thin tube made from medical grade materials serving a broad range of functions. Catheters are medical devices that can be inserted in the body to treat diseases or perform a surgical procedure. Cath ...

sheath. Hansen Medical received Frost & Sullivan's Product Innovation Award in 2008 for US Image-Guided and Robotic Assisted Surgery Devices. Moll was a board member of Mako Surgical until its sale in 2013. Moll co-founded surgical robotics company Auris Surgical Robots, now Auris Health, with Hari Sundram and J.P Velis in 2007. Auris Health's Monarch system is a diagnostic tool that uses robotic-assisted

endoscopy An endoscopy is a procedure used in medicine to look inside the body. The endoscopy procedure uses an endoscope to examine the interior of a hollow organ or cavity of the body. Unlike many other medical imaging techniques, endoscopes are insert ...

. Its application in the earlier and more accurate diagnosis of

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissue (biology), tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from tran ...

was approved by the

FDA The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a federal agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the control and supervision of food s ...

in 2018.

Johnson & Johnson Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is an American multinational corporation founded in 1886 that develops medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and consumer packaged goods. Its common stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the company i ...

(J&J) announced its acquisition of Auris Health in February 2019; Moll joined J&J as Chief Development Officer as part of the acquisition, and was involved in the acquisition of Verb Surgical from

Alphabet Inc. Alphabet Inc. is an American multinational technology conglomerate holding company headquartered in Mountain View, California. It was created through a restructuring of Google on October 2, 2015, and became the parent company of Google and sev ...

Verily Life Sciences Verily Life Sciences, also known as Verily (formerly Google Life Sciences), is Alphabet Inc.'s research organization devoted to the study of life sciences. The organization was formerly a division of Google X, until August 10, 2015, when Sergey ...

at the end of 2019. In 2016, Moll joined the board of RefleXion, a medical equipment company developing a biologically guided

radiation therapy Radiation therapy or radiotherapy, often abbreviated RT, RTx, or XRT, is a therapy using ionizing radiation, generally provided as part of cancer treatment to control or kill malignant cells and normally delivered by a linear accelerator. Radia ...

system for cancer treatment.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moll, Frederic American surgeons Lakeside School (Seattle) alumni Living people 1952 births University of California, Berkeley alumni