Abstract
Recent advances in actuation, control and learning have rapidly pushed humanoid robots from a distant vision towards near-term real-world deployment1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18. Healthcare is a particularly pressing domain, in which staffing shortages and increasing care demand are widening the gap between clinical workload and available skilled labour19,20,21. Although current automation has largely focused on digital and logistical tasks22, much hospital work remains embodied, requiring mobility, manipulation and safe interaction in human-designed environments. Humanoid form factors offer unique potential, particularly for assisting with surgical tasks. Traditionally, robotic systems for surgery are purpose-built platforms such as Intuitive Surgical’s da Vinci Surgical System23,24, and it remains unclear how close current humanoid systems are to meeting the precision, control and safety requirements of minimally invasive surgery. Here we present a systematic evaluation of contemporary humanoid technology for laparoscopic surgical tasks. We develop a humanoid-based laparoscopic teleoperation framework using general-purpose instruments and assess its abilities through benchtop characterization, dry-laboratory user studies spanning diverse surgical experience levels and in vivo porcine studies. Across these evaluations, we quantify technical feasibility, task performance and clinical readiness relative to established surgical platforms. Together, our study provides an evidence-based assessment of current humanoid abilities and limitations for surgical applications, highlighting both their promise and key technical challenges that must be addressed before clinical deployment.
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Data availability
The numerical source data and analysis code underlying the dry-laboratory study are publicly available at Zenodo61 (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20434260 Source data are provided with this paper.
Code availability
The code supporting the findings of this study is publicly available at Zenodo62 (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18023650
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Acknowledgements
We thank our laboratory mates in the Advanced Control and Robotics Lab (ARC Lab) for their assistance with hardware transfer. We also thank the staff of the Center for the Future of Surgery at the University of California, San Diego, for coordinating the experimental space and facilities.
Funding
Z.L., P.Z., C.J., S.A. and M.Y. were funded in part by the NSF Award IIS-2045803 and NIH award 1R01CA278703-01. S.L. and M.Y. were supported in part by the NIH award 1R21EB036284-01.
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Z.L., P.Z. and M.Y. devised the methodology; Z.L., N.T. and M.Y. designed the study; Z.L., N.T., P.Z., C.J, S.A., G.J., S.L., R.B. and M.Y. conducted the experiments; Z.L. and N.T. analysed the data; Z.L., N.T., P.Z., F.R. and M.Y. wrote the paper; and S.L., R.B. and M.Y. conceptualized the study.
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S.L. is a principal investigator of the Alume Trial at University of California, San Diego. R.B. is a consultant to Stryker, Johnson & Johnson MedTech and DistalMotion. M.Y. is a co-founder and Board Member of Channel Robotics and Owner-Operator of Yip Consulting Services.
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Nature thanks Axel Krieger, who co-reviewed with Laura Connolly, and Omar Kudsi for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer reports are available.
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Supplementary Tables 1 and 2.
Supplementary Video 1 (download MP4 )
System demonstration. Overview of the LapSurgie teleoperation workflow, showing the humanoid robot, laparoscopic instruments, endoscopic visualization, dry-lab manipulation and representative in vivo use.
Supplementary Video 2 (download MP4 )
Live surgery. Representative live cholecystectomy procedure using proposed humanoid system, showing trocar placement, humanoid-assisted laparoscopic manipulation, endoscopic views and integration with the operating-room workflow.
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Liang, Z., Thareja, N., Zhang, P. et al. In vivo feasibility study of humanoid robots in surgery. Nature (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10796-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10796-x