Imagine stepping into a living human cell to watch it divide and grow, then strolling down an inner ear canal.

Or being able to see a pool of oil or gas hundreds of metres beneath the surface of the earth – so close you feel you can touch it – and discover an easier way to extract those ancient fossil fuels.

Chris Wood, Business Edge
Professor Christoph Sensen believes the CAVE will open new windows for research.

It’s not quite a Star Trek holodeck, but rather a new technology unveiled last week at the University of Calgary that features a three-dimensional interactive “CAVE,” a virtual-reality tool with health and business applications.

“We have a lot of different companies lined up right now that want to explore how to use this for their development,” says Christoph Sensen, a professor in biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Calgary. Sensen has spearheaded the project as part of the new $6-million Sun Centre of Excellence for Visual Genomics.

U.S. technology giant Sun Microsystems Inc. has partnered with the Alberta and federal governments and other sponsors to create this CAVE, the first of its kind in the world to operate using a Java platform.

Java programming language was first developed by former U of C grad James Gosling, now a vice-president at Sun Microsystems.

The unique technology allows bioinformatics researchers to develop their projects off-site – from a home computer, for example – and then bring in the programs to test in a real-time virtual environment.

Bioinformatics is the study and process of mapping and organizing the complex information used in life-sciences research, and the U of C has vowed to become a Canadian leader in bioinformatics with advanced research and training.

The CAVE, a product designed and licensed by Kitchener, Ont.-based Fakespace Inc., features high-resolution, stereoscopic projection which allows multiple users wearing stereo-goggles to immerse themselves in a 3D environment.

The darkened room – with four walls, 270 degree of imaging on its sides and a floor display – is backboned by one of Canada’s largest scientific server rooms, drawing on about 150 databases including imaging, genomic and protein data.

While many private companies and universities around the world already own single-user CAVEs – the technology is common in the aerospace and automotive industry – the U of C model will be open to life-sciences researchers from across the province and country, and to businesses on a fee-for-use basis.

A second CAVE on the U of C campus is already planned. Sensen predicts the Calgary market could support three or four more units.

Stefan Unger, business development manager for Sun Microsystems, calls the new centre a “bold and imaginative project.”

“This is the first of what we hope to be a series of centres in visual genomics,” says Unger. “It’s the first effort that I’m aware of using CAVE technology in the bioinformatics space, and we think it’s off to a remarkable start.”

There are six Sun Centres of Excellence around the world, and Unger says many universities are looking at bioinformatics and computational biology as a way to “bootstrap” themselves to the forefront of modern science.

The U of C’s faculty of medicine has started to develop programming to build a “cyber cell,” a digital model of a human cell that will help scientists “see” its inner workings.

It’s expected to reduce research time, costs and even eliminate some unnecessary experiments on laboratory animals and cadavers, since it can simulate animal and plant systems.

“What we’re trying to do is take complex data sets . . . and transform them into a much more user-friendly way of displaying the information,” says Randy Johnston, president of Genome Prairie, the regional arm of the not-for-profit Genome Canada that is developing a national strategy in genomics research.

Other funding partners include the Alberta Science and Research Authority and the Alberta Network for Proteomics Innovation.

Sensen says the new centre will help research into diseases such as Alzheimer’s, diabetes and cancer.

“No cure has been found for any of those in the last 30 years, even though they’ve been heavily studied,” he says. “And we think by mapping the information in the human body, it will be much easier to find points where we can intercept these diseases and create a lead for a cure.”

Sensen, a botanist and computer systems manager, was lured to the U of C after working as a scientist at the National Research Council in Halifax. He credits the “Alberta Advantage” for enabling scientists to engage in such cutting-edge research.

“If you want to do science in Canada, the best place to be is in Alberta – there’s no doubt about it,” he says. “I spent seven years in the Maritimes, and I tried to get the province to buy into the things that we do, and it was absolutely impossible.”