Biopathway Remote Analysis & Collaboration (BRAC)
Tacitus LLC, 2008
One of the key issues facing genetically-focused cancer drug development is the complexity of doing deep biological pathway analysis – assessing thousands of genes and proteins, and their complex interactions and dependencies – while also collaborating with remote teams who are looking on the same pathway, but different interactions, and quite often different genes of interest.
This prototype (nicknamed "Biosprockets") was developed by Howard Coale and his company Tacitus to do a variety of things: 1) utilize sophisticated game technology to provide a fully-immersive visualization experience for cancer researchers and drug developers working in pathway analysis, 2) deliver a collaboration platform for drug discovery that focuses on the need for playing with combinations, comparisons, and if/then scenarios by a group of researchers, and finally, 3) explore the value of three-dimensional, real-time manipulation of very complex datasets as a collective activity, as opposed to a series of single-person interactions.