| NSF Org: |
TI Translational Impacts |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | September 11, 2024 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | November 12, 2024 |
| Award Number: | 2432936 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Lindsay Portnoy
lportnoy@nsf.gov (703)292-8848 TI Translational Impacts TIP Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships |
| Start Date: | September 15, 2024 |
| End Date: | February 28, 2025 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $274,388.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $294,388.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2025 = $20,000.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
2208 SPRUCE ST BILLINGS MT US 59101-0537 (612)961-3604 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
2208 SPRUCE ST BILLINGS MT US 59101-0537 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): |
SBIR Phase I, SBIR Outreach & Tech. Assist |
| Primary Program Source: |
01002526DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT |
| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.084 |
ABSTRACT
The broader/commercial impact of this SBIR Phase I project is to advance science education in microbiology through an interactive, virtual microbe world. This innovation will make complex scientific concepts more accessible to diverse learners, including those traditionally underrepresented in STEM. The application allows students to explore microscopic organisms at various scales, enhancing understanding of microbiology, immunology, and public health. By providing immersive, hands-on experiences, it brings textbook concepts to life, potentially improving comprehension and retention. The project targets educational institutions offering life science programs, particularly undergraduate medical education, with plans to expand to other disciplines and secondary education markets. This technology addresses the growing need for engaging, technology-enhanced learning tools in STEM education. By improving science literacy on microbial infections, vaccines, and antibiotics, the project serves the national interest in advancing health and scientific understanding. The business model focuses on institutional licensing, with potential for individual subscriptions. This approach could significantly impact how students learn about and interact with the microbial world, fostering a deeper appreciation for life sciences.
This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project addresses the challenge of effectively teaching complex microbiology concepts to undergraduate medical students. The research objectives focus on leveraging extended reality (XR) technology and artificial intelligence to enhance the learning experience of infectious diseases and microbes. The proposed research involves developing a novel XR application using the Meta SDK platform within the Unity game engine, incorporating 3D microbial assets created with Blender and Adobe software. These assets will feature realistic textures based on microscopy images, ensuring scientific accuracy. The system will employ a bacteriophage AI-assist to adapt content delivery based on individual learning styles, including auditory, visual, kinesthetic, and text-based approaches. The anticipated technical results include a cross-platform accessible WebGL build compatible with XR headsets, mobile devices, and personal computers. This innovative approach aims to significantly improve learning outcomes for both traditional and non-traditional students by providing an immersive, interactive, and personalized educational experience. The project's scope encompasses the development, testing, and evaluation of this XR-based learning system, with the potential to positively impact microbiology education in undergraduate medical curricula.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
MedMicroMaps is an innovative project that leverages virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI) to create an engaging and interactive experience in medical microbiology. Learners struggle with abstract concepts such as studying microscopic life without visible and tactile representations. Aiming to improve science educational experiences by providing an immersive learning environment, MedMicroMaps has developed a suite of digital applications for students pursing health sciences education.
An innovative aspect of MedMicroMaps is the creation of a comprehensive mind map of infectious diseases for pre-clinical medical and nursing students, which serves as the foundational atlas of patient storylines. This mind map uses principles of the Method of Loci and spatial repetition to guide learners through differentials from clinical, epidemiological, and biological perspectives. With maintaining consistent color coding and patterns from the 2-D e-book, a virtual microscopic world was developed on platforms accessible with web-enabled devices and a Unity-based game for Meta Quest VR headsets. Through mission-based games, learners can explore human health and microbes through visual, verbal, auditory and tactile interactions with 3-D microbial assets designed from electron microscopy, providing accurate representations of biological classifications. The player is challenged to identify the cause of a sore throat, guided by a professor avatar and Phage.i, an AI-trained bacteriophage. The web-based VR world utilizes a scavenger hunt of microbes interspersed with play zones, including surfing Salmonella, red blood cell bumper cars and parkour on tonsils. Upon successful completion of finding all the microbes, the learner is equipped with a super-soaker that eliminates the Strep bacteria with molecules of antibiotics to cure the patient of Strep throat infection.
As an extension of the e-book and web-based VR world, a stand-alone gaming app for Meta Quest headsets has been developed, using cutting-edge spatial computing technology with enhanced hand-tracking and pass-through mixed reality visualizations. The microbiology content caters to a wide range of learners, from high school students to post-graduate allied health professionals, with the integrated AI-tutor adapting to skill and knowledge levels. The microbial models remain consistent across all platforms to facilitate pattern recognition of classifications, thus enhancing learning by consistency of 2-D and 3-D representations of the infectious agents. Furthermore, the Quest app features a novel interactive, scaling map depicting the accurate relative sizes of carbon atom (0.34 picometers), components of the human cell and paradigm microbes smaller than a red blood cell (8.0 microns). The eloquent mathematical configuration of 5-fold logarithmic scale condenses objects within a visible range, akin to a slinky, that is comparable to the linear distance from Los Angelos to New York. Learners with basic to advanced life science education rapidly grasp the size differences between a glucose molecule, viruses, bacteria and human mitochondria by holding the models in each hand, providing the most efficient way to learn microbiological classifications.
The innovations of MedMicroMaps developed during the research and development activities in Phase 1 have formed a foundation for creating new patient story lines and gaming interactions, aiming to create an expansive microscopic virtual world for current and future generations of learners.
Last Modified: 03/01/2025
Modified by: Jane C Harrington
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