project. VIMIBI

project description. 

Microfluidics has been instrumental in the development of single-cell microbiology in academic research over the past decades, allowing thousands of cells to be monitored under defined environmental conditions. To do this, most laboratories use custom and home-made designs and equipment, in addition to microscopy. This circumstance leads to a wide variety of possible setups for conducting microfluidic experiments, making it difficult to communicate the processes, procedures and operations to students and interested parties.

The Virtual Reality (VR) technology can provide a solution to this problem by reducing the complexity of the processes through visualisation. By immersing themselves in the respective process, users can experience and understand the interrelationships "on the object", which are difficult to grasp with 2D elements, thus increasing the learning effect.

The BUA-funded X-Student Research Group project VIMIBI therefore aims to answer the question (1) to what extent VR can contribute to making complex biological processes and techniques comprehensible, and (2) to evaluate whether VR environments can have a positive effect on the planning and execution of experiments in the laboratory, using microfluidic chips as an example. VIMIBI is a joint project of the Chair of Molecular Microbiology (MolMicro - HU Berlin) and the REALITAETENLABOR of the Chair of Information and Communication Management (IKM - TU Berlin).

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