Aussie project means international research to go online

Universities in Australia, Asia, Europe, Canada and the US are using an online laboratory to collaborate on HIV genomic research.

The project, the brainchild of academics at UNSW, was born out of a unique partnership between science and design and has the potential to revolutionise the way scientists interact when conducting international research.

The project, Visualising the Science of Genomics (VSG), will see students and senior academics from 24 universities, in 11 different countries, working together on genomic sequence analysis. The research will be based on studies of groups of HIV-positive subjects and will be conducted entirely online.

Each of the eight teams will comprise students and academics from a range of countries and disciplines. The teams will use three-dimensional modelling and genomic analysis to examine the way HIV mutates and the implications for the development of a vaccine.

Co-convenors of VSG are Dr Kathy Takayama, senior lecturer in UNSW's school of biotechnology and biomolecular sciences and Rick Bennett, senior lecturer in design at UNSW's College of Fine Arts. The customised platform for the project is the unique Omnium software originally created by Bennett for collaboration between visual designers. Takayama developed the 3D modelling as a tool to teach the application of genomic sequencing.

"At the time I was also looking for a way to undertake international research online," says Takayama. "I needed a platform that was highly collaborative, visually based and could provide the experience of direct and immediate contact with colleagues who might actually be half a world away.

"Omnium is the ideal platform because it enables students and researchers to combine visual modelling with real time research. Omnium becomes the online laboratory."

Bennett is confident the project will prove the huge potential of Omnium as a research tool as well as an approach to learning. "I originally developed Omnium for collaboration in the creative arts," he says. "But because it is a visual based software, and safeguards those elements vital to co-operative group learning, I always believed it would have considerable spin-offs for research and practice in other disciplines."

For more information, please visit the Omnium website

Item provided courtesy of UNSW