The correlation between the healthcare industry and virtual reality becomes a lot more apparent as time progresses. Researchers at C4X Discovery are tapping into this technology as a way to develop new life-enhancing drugs. All of this is made possible thanks to the new 4Sight VR tool.
4Sight is a Game Changer
One has to commend companies for taking a gamble on virtual reality technology. Considering how this technology and industry is still considered to be a niche market, there’s plenty of room for improvements. For C4X Discovery, a drug discovery company, VR can play a big role of importance. So much even that the company has built its own VR research tool, known as 4Sight.
With this tool, the company wants to entice chemists to visualize the structure of complex molecules. In the long run, this should lead to the discovery of completely new drugs which can offer many quality-of-life improvements down the line. Being able to directly interact with virtual molecules and gain a better understanding of their inner working will usually lead to exciting discoveries over the coming weeks and months.
C4XD Medicinal Chemist Thorsten Nowak comments:
“Starting to use VR was quite transformative, because all of a sudden the molecules become part of my world and I can manipulate them in space just ahead of me, like you would do comparing two oranges and two apples. If you’re watching television you can see all the action, but you’re never really part of it. [Using VR], molecules almost become part of your world. So it is as if you were participating directly. You can manipulate them as if they are objects that are part of your environment.”
Considering how chemists are usually visual input-oriented people, virtual reality can prove to be a great tool. Gone are the ball-and-stick models of the past, as virtual reality and 3D renders of molecules are now taking center stage. For the time being, it remains a bit unclear as to what type of drugs will be developed moving forward. Giving biochemists more tools to work with can only be considered to be a good thing, though.
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