XR game development as a tool for authentic, experiential, and collaborative learning.

This brief review provides insights into the recent advances made by the Unity game engine into education and the ways that learning resources can be used to teach novice bioscience students to use the VR/AR affordances of the platform. We present our own practises for implementation of a novel gamification task for final-year bioscience students and reflect on the changes we have had to make in order to overcome challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bioscience education 2030 and beyond: Where will technology take the curriculum?

This brief review explores the ever-increasing role that technological affordances may play in the 21C biochemistry and molecular biology curriculum. We consider the need to develop digital and creative fluencies in our students and the importance of creativity and visualization in learning science. The potential of virtual reality (VR) platforms to complement these goals are discussed with a number of examples.

Big Data in Drug Discovery.

Interpretation of Big Data in the drug discovery community should enhance project timelines and reduce clinical attrition through improved early decision making. The issues we encounter start with the sheer volume of data and how we first ingest it before building an infrastructure to house it to make use of the data in an efficient and productive way. There are many problems associated with the data itself including general reproducibility, but often, it is the context surrounding an experiment that is critical to success.

Chemical priming of immunity without costs to plant growth.

β-Aminobutyric acid (BABA) induces broad-spectrum disease resistance, but also represses plant growth, which has limited its exploitation in crop protection. BABA perception relies on binding to the aspartyl-tRNA synthetase (AspRS) IBI1, which primes the enzyme for secondary defense activity. This study aimed to identify structural BABA analogues that induce resistance without stunting plant growth.

Plant perception of β-aminobutyric acid is mediated by an aspartyl-tRNA synthetase.

Specific chemicals can prime the plant immune system for augmented defense. β-aminobutyric acid (BABA) is a priming agent that provides broad-spectrum disease protection. However, BABA also suppresses plant growth when applied in high doses, which has hampered its application as a crop defense activator.