The first collaborative VR molecular modelling application was released yesterday, August 29, to encourage hands-on chemistry experimentation.
It is open-source so it’s free for download now on Oculus and Steam products.
Nanome, Inc., the San Diego-based start-up that built this tool, comprises UCSD professors and researchers, web developers and top-level pharmaceutical executives.
“Gamers might be confused that you can’t shoot atoms, chemicals and proteins,” said Steve McCloskey, Founder and CEO of Nanome.
“But, those with an interest in chemistry are going to be blown away.”
This virtual reality software allows you to “traverse, build and modify the nanoscale world,” according to a Nanome press release.
“With our tool, anyone can reach out and experience science at the nanoscale as if it is right in front of them. At Nanome, we are bringing the craftsmanship and natural intuition from interacting with these nanoscale structures at room scale to everyone,” McCloskey said.
Here is some mixed-reality footage of the app being used in real time, provided by the company’s Chief Engineering Officer and Co-Founder, Sam Hessenauer. Here is a live demonstration of a test of the app. And here is a link to Nanome’s website.
The press release that the team provided goes further to explain the impact they feel their product will have for its users:
“The Nanome software opens the door to a virtual world where you can experiment, design, and learn at the nanoscale alongside your friends and real-world research scientists,” it says.
McClosky feels that the app’s allowance for real-time communication and interaction alongside the virtual nano-verse they’ve created will be invaluable for up-and-coming scientists in the field.
“For the first time, scientists and everyday people can collaborate and work independently through a common interface,” said McCloskey. “We are providing you with the best tools science can provide.”
According to the press release, the way the software works involves an in-game camera which can photograph your work in an easily-sharable format. Public and private ‘rooms’ allow the user to collaborate and share their scientific ideas and receive critiques from professionals or reactions from friends in real-time. An in-game marketplace gives the user the ability to purchase the plug-ins necessary to further their particular scientific inquiry.
The release boasts a robust codebase that can be easily updated as well.
“You can import scientifically accurate molecular structures from online research databases such as RCSB Protein Databank, Pubchem and Drugbank,” the release says.
The team wants to emphasize the significance of this access. Armed with this information, they say, users have the unique ability to manipulate and measure atomic distances and angles between atoms and learn about and modify amino acids or other proteins.
You can even design completely new molecules using the Periodic Table.
With this level of accuracy at a nano scale, chemicals, atoms and proteins that are too small to gain a 3-D perspective and understanding with our hands become more accessible to our brains.
Nanome’s mission is to “democratize science, engineering, and research using Virtual Reality and Blockchain technology,” according to the release.
They have worked for years already in the pharmaceutical cyber-market to research products for customers to use chemical structures to build their own drug solutions. This release marks the culmination of all that hard work.
“We build intelligent virtual reality interfaces that enable scientists and engineers to collaborate, design and simulate with nanoscale precision.
Our software helps advance research and development in life sciences, materials sciences, and nano-engineering through hands-on virtual reality interfaces,” Nanome’s mission statement says.
You can view a demonstration of this new technology live on twitch or download the app directly through Oculus, to be used in conjunction with your own headset.
So why are fifteen of San Diego’s top pharmaceutical and engineering minds focused on an educational virtual atom-building tool?
McCloskey, Hessenauer and their team agree that virtual reality is the technology that marks the next wave in scientific thought and discovery.
“VR brings us back to our primitive nature,” McCloskey said. “Everything we’ve ever created as a species has been hands-on and in 3D. So, in the 21st century, why aren’t we experimenting in 3D?”
All photos courtesy of Nanome, Inc.’s press kit available on their website.
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