Carlos J. Lavernia, MD, FAAOS, orthopedic surgeon and biomedical engineer holds an academic appointment as Professor for the Department of Orthopaedics in the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine at Florida International University. In addition, he is Courtesy Professor for the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at Florida International University and Voluntary Professor for the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Miami School of Medicine.
In his research endeavors, Dr. Lavernia has obtained several patents and has contributed ideas to many inventions that have changed the way orthopedic surgery is done around the globe. He helped design a hip system for Depuy and a revision system for Smith and Nephew. In addition, with 5 other surgeons developed primary hip and knee implant systems for Zimmer that have been implanted in over a million patients. Dr. Lavernia was on the development team for the software used in hip and knee replacement for the Mako robot. This innovative haptic robotic system uses a mechanical arm and is used in total hip and total knee replacements. Dr. Lavernia was the only surgeon/engineer within both design teams —the hip and the knee, giving him a unique perspective on the project and the ability to serve as an instrumental channel between the engineers and the surgeons. The robot was acquired by a multinational corporation in 2015. There are over 1000 robots all over the world and the system has been used to perform over 50,000 procedures.