1 Guang-Zhong Yang is the Editor of Science Robotics and the Director and Co-founder of the Hamlyn Centre for Robotic Surgery, Imperial College London, U.K. Email: g.z.yang@imperial.ac.uk.
2 James Cambias is an American science fiction writer.
3 Kevin Cleary is the Technical Director of the Bioengineering Initiative, Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation, Children's National Health System, Washington, DC 20010, USA.
4 Eric Daimler is a White House Presidential Innovation Fellow at the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Washington, DC 20504, USA.
5 James Drake is Head of the Division of Neurosurgery, and Director of the Centre of Image Guided Innovation and Therapeutic Intervention, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada.
6 Pierre E. Dupont is the Director of the Pediatric Cardiac Bioengineering Laboratory, Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
7 Nobuhiko Hata is an Associate Professor of Radiology at the Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
8 Peter Kazanzides is a Research Professor at the Department of Computer Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.
9 Sylvain Martel is Head of the NanoRobotics Laboratory, Department of Computer and Software Engineering, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Polytechnique Montréal, Montréal, Québec H3T 1J4, Canada.
10 Rajni V. Patel is Director of Engineering, Canadian Surgical Technologies and Advanced Robotics (CSTAR), and Professor, Western University, London, ON N6A 5B9, Canada.
11 Veronica J. Santos is Director of the Biomechatronics Lab and an Associate Professor of Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.
12 Russell H. Taylor is Director of the the Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics and of the Engineering Research Center for Computer-Integrated Surgical Systems and Technology, Department of Computer Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.
The regulatory, ethical, and legal barriers imposed on medical robots necessitate careful consideration of different levels of autonomy, as well as the context for use.