Bertrand Duplat on Surgical Microrobots in the Brain

Neurofounders Conversations is the podcast from the neurotech media-intelligence platform Neurofounders. Host Dominic Borkelmans, editor-in-chief and founder of Neurofounders, interviews founders working on the frontier of neurotech innovation. In this episode, Bertrand Duplat, CEO and co-founder of Robeauté, discusses the company’s work on microrobots designed to navigate through the brain along curved trajectories. Unlike conventional needles, catheters, and deep-brain electrodes that are constrained to straight paths, Robeauté is developing a system intended to reach multiple and difficult-to-access locations while minimizing invasiveness. The conversation covers the engineering behind the microrobot, including its ultrasound-based tracking system, how neurosurgeons define and monitor its trajectory, and the infrastructure Robeauté is building to eventually carry tools ranging from biopsy systems to drug-delivery technologies and electrodes. Duplat also discusses the company’s first application in brain-cancer biopsy, its current preclinical work, plans toward first-in-human studies, and the longer-term potential for microrobotics across neurodegenerative disease, neuropsychiatry, and deep-brain interfaces. This episode was created with support from Neurotech Futures, an intelligence platform for the neurotech industry. You can subscribe to the Neurotech Futures Substack for free.