Scientists create a gaming machine that uses real live single-celled organisms in an experiment that aims to make learning about microscopic living creatures fun Mumbai Mirror Bureau mirrorfeedback@indiatimes.com Video game designers are always striving to make games more lifelike,but theyll have a hard time topping what Stanford researcher Ingmar Riedel-Kruse is up to.Hes introducing life itself into games.Riedel-Kruse and his lab group have developed the first video games in which a players actions influence the behaviour of living microorganisms in real time while the game is being played. These biotic games involve a variety of basic biological processes and some simple single-celled organisms (such as paramecia) in combination with biotechnology. HAVING FUN WHILE STUDYING The goal is for players to have fun interacting with biological processes,without dealing with the rigor of conducting a formal experiment,said Riedel-Kruse,an assistant professor of bioengineering. We hope that by playing games involving biology of a scale too small to see with the naked eye,people will realise how amazing these processes are and theyll get curious and want to know more, he said. The applications we can envision so far are on the one hand educational,for people to learn about biology,but we are also thinking perhaps we could have people running real experiments as they play these games. Applying their lab equipment and knowledge to game development,Riedel-Kruses group came up with eight games falling broadly into three classes,depending on whether players directly interact with biological processes on the scale of molecules,single cells or colonies of single cells. The results have been published in the journal Lab on a Chip. UPGRADING FROM PAC MAN Initially,Riedel-Kruse said,the researchers just wanted to see whether they could design such biotic games at all,so this first round of development produced fairly simple games. We tried to mimic some classic video games, he said.For example,one game in which players guide paramecia to gobble up little balls,a la PacMan,was christened PAC-mecium.Then there is Biotic Pinball,POND PONG and Ciliaball.The latter game is named for the tiny hairs,called cilia,that paramecia use in a flipper-like fashion to swim around and in the game enables kicking a virtual soccer ball. HOW IT WORKS The basic design of the games involving paramecia the single-celled organisms used in countless biology experiments from grade school classes to university research labs consists of a small fluid chamber within which the paramecia can roam freely.A camera sends live images to a video screen,with the game board superimposed on the image of the paramecia.A microprocessor tracks the movements of the paramecia and keeps score. The player attempts to control the paramecia using a controller that is much like a typical video game controller.In some games,such as PAC-mecium,the player controls the polarity of a mild electrical field applied across the fluid chamber,which influences the direction the paramecia move.In Biotic Pinball,the player injects occasional whiffs of a chemical into the fluid,causing the paramecia to swim one direction or another. The game on the molecular level involves a common lab technique called polymerase chain reaction,or PCR,an automated process that lets researchers make millions of copies of an organisms DNA in as little as two hours. In this game,called PolymerRace,the player is linked to the output of a PCR machine that is running different reactions simultaneously.While the reactions are running,the players can bet on which reactions will be run the fastest.The game PolymerRace is inspired by horse races,where you have different jockeys riding different horses, Riedel-Kruse said.There is a little bit of bio-molecular logic involved and a little bit of chance. NO PAIN INVOLVED Riedel-Kruse emphasised that paramecia,being single-celled organisms,lack a brain and the capacity to feel pain.We are talking about microbiology with these games,very primitive life forms.We do not use any higher-level organisms, he said.Since multiple test players raised the question of exactly where one should draw this line,these games could be a good tool to stimulate discussions in schools on bioethical issues. Riedel-Kruse wants to maximise the educational potential of these games to enable lay people to contribute to biomedical research.The team hopes that by publishing his groups initial efforts,other researchers in the life sciences will be prompted to explore how their own research could be adapted to biotic video games.   |