(UroToday.com) The State-of-the-Art Lecture at the 2020 Society of Urologic Oncology (SUO) annual virtual winter meeting was provided by Dr. Duke Herrell of Vanderbilt University who discussed the past, present, and future of surgical robotics and oncology. For decades “surgery” was an open body cavity, with exposed organs, and relying heavily on the visual plus manual (palpation) method. However, since that time there have been several minimally invasive paradigm shifts in urology, including the advent of endoscopy, ESWL, laparoscopy, ablation, and robotic surgery. The evolution of complex laparoscopic surgery included the first laparoscopic nephrectomy in 1991 (USA) and the first laparoscopic prostatectomy in 1997 (France).