IMRIS Inc. announced the establishment of the SYMBIS™ Surgical System Advisory Board, comprised of three internationally recognized surgeons in the fields of neurosurgery and robotics. The advisory board will provide guidance in the development, clinical study, training and commercialization of SYMBIS - a minimally invasive, MRI-compatible neurosurgical robot. The SYMBIS Advisory Board members are: Garnette Sutherland, MD, FRCS(C) of Foothills Medical Center at the University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta.

A professor in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Calgary, he served as the Chief of Neurosurgery until 2003. David Roberts, MD, FAANS, of the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Hanover and Lebanon, NH. He is Professor of Surgery (Neurosurgery), Chief of the Section of Neurosurgery, and Director of the Dartmouth neurosurgery residency training program.

Dr. Roberts has a research interest in computer-assisted surgery and was an early innovator in frameless stereotaxy and the surgical treatment for epilepsy. He has served as president of the American Society for Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery and the Society of University Neurosurgeons, and is a Director of the American Board of Neurological Surgery. Melvin Field, MD, of Orlando Neurosurgery, Winter Park, FL.

Dr. Field is the physician champion of the Minimally Invasive Brain Surgery Program at Florida Hospital Orlando and the Neurosurgical Director of the Florida Hospital Neuroscience Institute. He has served as an instructor at several national forums teaching advanced techniques in minimally invasive brain surgery.