Virtual reality has been out there for
the gaming industry for more than ten
years and it's a very strong field. But
actually using this technique to
actually understand proteins and how
this understanding can lead to new
drugs, this is a relatively recent field.
And the UCSF ChimeraX team, they are
pioneering this field.
All of our
research really revolves around trying
to understand how protein structures and
other biological three-dimensional
structures what they tell us about how
the proteins work, and then ultimately
exploiting that for drug discovery, how
can we develop drugs that will target
these proteins.
I try to understand from
a computational perspective how proteins
work and how can small molecules bind to
this protein and affect its function,
potentially providing new hypotheses for
new therapies
VR has completely changed
things now with the ability to walk into
a scene and be able to see things from
multiple directions.
Using it a couple times, especially here
in discussions and lab meetings, I found
that it was extremely useful and
everyone can step up, put on the headset,
and point at something and we can
discuss ideas on the go.
We've used Chimera for years. It's one of
the best software out there for
visualizing proteins and other
biological structures. And of course Tom
Ferrin, who develops Chimera and ChimeraX,
is a colleague in my department.
UCSF has been a leader in this area for decades
now and there's very few academic
research labs developing software at
this caliber. It provides much more
of an intuitive feel for proteins for
especially for people who are not
experts in them. Beth, at some level, you
know, she's an incredible expert in this
field of protein kinases and the role in
cancer. But being able to sit there with
her and look at the proteins in 3D, all
of a sudden, you know, she could get very
very quickly an intuitive feel for how
the protein structure is related to its
function.
Pediatric patients with
high-risk leukemias may give a sample of
their leukemia cells to be molecularly
profiled.
We have these new targeted medicines
that work against specific mutations
that cause cancer, but the proteins can
change in a way that they can no longer
be blocked by the medications.
The VR room was great. That's where our
meetings were held and so we all knew
that we were on the same page. If
somebody was talking about a certain
loop in the protein you could actually
walk into the protein with them and they
could point at it and actually show you,
so it's not like you're looking at a
two-dimensional picture making sort of
guessing whether or not you're talking
about the same residue. In this scenario
we were able to just focus on just
certain important mutants rather than
look at every possible mutant out there.
Qualitatively, I can say, being able to
walk into a protein, look at it from
multiple perspectives, I mean literally,
you know, putting my head in the middle
of it, it leads to insights that I think
I just wouldn't have had otherwise
