Meeting the Challenges of Surgical Device Design and Translation for Global Use

The need for viable global health solutions—and particularly solutions for global surgery—are paramount [2] . In response, a research group at the University of Leeds, U.K., has been working in concert with a multidisciplinary team to develop retractor for abdominal insufflation-less surgery (RAIS), a gasless laparoscopy system that enables crucial surgery in low-resource settings. The group is led by Peter Culmer, professor in health care engineering at the University of Leeds ( Figure 1 ). Recently, their paper, “The RAIS Device for Global Surgery: Using a Participatory Design Approach to Navigate the Translational Pathway,” published in the IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine [1] , was selected to receive the 2023 IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Paper Award.