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University of Oxford surgeons at Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital have performed the world's first operation inside the eye using a robot.

Robot-assisted eye surgery: Professor Robert MacLaren steers the robot in its first live operation © Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Robot-assisted eye surgery: Professor Robert MacLaren steers the robot in its first live operation

Robert MacLaren, Professor of Ophthalmology.at the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, assisted by Dr Thomas Edwards, Nuffield Medical Fellow, used the remotely controlled robot to lift a membrane 100th of a millimetre thick from the retina at the back of the right eye of the Revd Dr William Beaver, 70, an Associate Priest at St Mary the Virgin, Iffley, Oxford. He is the first patient ever to undergo this experimental procedure.

Read more on the University of Oxford website.