Mani Menon

Mani Menon, born 9 July 1948 in Trichur, India, is an American surgeon whose work has helped to lay the foundation for modern Robotic Cancer Surgery. He is the founding director and the Raj and Padma Vattikuti Distinguished Chair of the Vattikuti Urology Institute at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, MI, where he established the first cancer-oriented robotics program in the world. Menon is widely regarded for his role in the development of robotic surgery techniques for the treatment of patients with prostate, kidney, and bladder cancers, as well as for the development of robotic kidney transplantation.
Menon is the recipient of the Gold Cystoscope Award, Hugh Hampton Young award, the Keyes Medal, the prestigious B.C. Roy award.

Early years and urological career

He started his medical journey in 1964 from JIPMER where he did his MBBS. Menon developed a novel technique to measure androgen receptors in the human prostate. At the age of 34, Menon became the chairman of the Urology department at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester, Massachusetts. During early career, his major contributions were in the field of kidney stone disease where he helped develop the use of intra-operative ultrasonography as an aid to renal stone management and also devised methods to quantify citrate and oxalate levels in urine using ion chromatography.