Surgical imaging · Clinical development · AI systems

I take new imaging technology into the operating room, and I build AI tools that speed the work up.

I'm a Senior Manager in Imaging at Intuitive, where I've spent ten years moving first-in-class fluorescence imaging agents for robotic surgery from IND through Phase 3. Outside of that, I design and ship software: multi-agent AI systems, automation for a family e-commerce business, and small tools that solve real problems for people I know.

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Robotic prostatectomy views in pairs: white light next to near-infrared fluorescence, showing a glowing primary tumor, a positive surgical margin, and residual disease in the resection bed
Seeing cancer during surgery. Each white-light view is paired with IS-002 fluorescence, which shows the primary tumor, a positive surgical margin, and residual disease left in the resection bed. These are from the first-in-human Phase 1 trial I led. Fig. 1, Nguyen, van den Berg, Antaris et al., Eur Urol Oncol 2024 (CC BY 4.0)
White light and fluorescence views of a tumor-positive lymph node
Tumor-positive lymph node. Spread to a lymph node, highlighted in real time. Fig. 2, Nguyen, van den Berg, Antaris et al., Eur Urol Oncol 2024 (CC BY 4.0)
Near-infrared fluorescence images of nerves, exposed and beneath 1 to 2 mm of muscle
Making nerves visible. A near-infrared nerve-binding fluorophore lights up nerves, even beneath 1–2 mm of tissue. Fig. 3A, Wang et al., Sci Transl Med 2020

01 — Work

Imaging in robotic surgery

At Intuitive I own clinical, nonclinical, and regulatory strategy for fluorescence imaging agents. These are injectable dyes that make tissue such as tumors visible to the surgeon during a robotic procedure.

  1. 2025 – now

    Senior Manager, Imaging

    I lead clinical, nonclinical, and regulatory strategy for a first-in-class fluorescence imaging agent program, including serving as sponsor lead with FDA. I also brought agentic AI into our development workflow by building tools with Claude Code that my team now uses.

  2. 2022 – 2025

    Manager, Imaging

    I designed and delivered a Phase 3 study on time and on budget (NCT05954767).

  3. 2018 – 2022

    Imaging Scientist → Clinical Project Manager

    I took a first-in-class prostate cancer imaging agent through IND clearance and into first-in-human use. I was study lead for its Phase 1 trial (NCT04574401), where the agent detected cancer missed by standard surgery in 37.5% of patients. In total I ran 6 Phase 1–2 trials end to end.

  4. 2016 – 2018

    Clinical Development Engineer

    I owned clinical validation through launch for endoscopes, Firefly fluorescence imaging, and an AR surgical-navigation iOS app.

02 — Building

Things I've built with AI

I build with AI coding tools like Claude Code, and I care most about systems people actually use. Each one started with a specific problem.

Intuitive · Multi-agent LLM

AI review team for drug development

An internal tool that models a drug-development team, with one LLM agent per functional role (clinical, regulatory, and others). It reviews draft documents before subject-matter experts do and flags cross-functional issues in report cards ranked by severity. Each agent is unit-tested, and the outputs were tuned through a human grading loop with the team.

Now in regular use by my team.

E-commerce · Serverless

Real-time inventory platform

Serverless automation for a family e-commerce business, built on AWS Lambda and EventBridge, Supabase, and marketplace APIs. It keeps inventory in sync across every sales channel in real time, so nothing sells twice.

Revenue grew 300%+ after launch.

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Agentic pipeline

Agentic product posting

An agent turns a folder of photos and notes into a finished, validated product listing. It checks for duplicate SKUs and serial numbers and confirms live inventory status before anything is published.

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Finance automation

P&L and import cost tracker

A pipeline that turns raw bank and credit-card exports into a categorized monthly P&L. It reconciles international wire transfers and spreads import costs across each unit of inventory, and anything ambiguous goes to a short review queue instead of being guessed.

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Desktop app · Python

K-Docket

A desktop app I built for a friend to manage her daily court calendar. It converts the court's Word calendar into a formatted worksheet, fills in each case's history from past notes, and highlights new cases in red when the calendar changes mid-day. It runs fully offline, so no case data leaves the machine.

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03 — Speaking & research

Invited panelist · LSI Asia '26

Visual Intelligence: The Future of Image-Guided Procedures

A panel on how AI is changing what surgeons can see, and what they can do with it.

  • 50+publications
  • 19,000+citations
  • 40h-index
  • ~10patents & applications

Featured paper · First author

A Small-Molecule Dye for NIR-II Imaging

Nature Materials 15, 235–242 (2016)

A dye that glows in the second near-infrared window, where light travels deeper through tissue. It's part of the foundation for seeing structures inside the body without radiation.

In the news: ABC7 News · Stanford Report · Phys.org

Education

Stanford University
Ph.D., Materials Science & Engineering
NDSEG & NSF Fellow

Northwestern University
B.S., Electrical Engineering

All publications on Google Scholar →

04 — Outside work

Away from the screen

I design and build furniture in my woodshop. I'm a former competitive powerlifter and a purple belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

Let's talk.

I'm always happy to talk about surgical imaging, AI in regulated healthcare, or something you're building.

alexander.antaris@gmail.com LinkedIn Google Scholar