Cellusimun simulador 3D en entorno videojuego para la docencia del laboratorio de cultivos celulares

Abstract

Cell cultures allow the maintenance of living cells outside the body. This technique is fundamental to study the biological, biochemical and physiological properties of cells and can be used as an experimental model in vitro in the field of biomedical research. The teaching in the laboratory of this technique presents numerous difficulties at a practical, logistical and economic level. On the other hand, the learning of cell culture protocols is an important part of the student's training in Cell Biology. Based on the routine practices carried out within a cell culture laboratory, we have developed the virtual 3D simulator of a cell culture laboratory "Cellusim". In "Cellusim" you can perform basic tasks of the cell culture of an established cell line of your own (Mel-RC08, Gil-Benso et al., 2012). To make Cellusim more attractive and intuitive to students, it has been developed in the Unity graphic environment, commonly used for the development of video games. The system includes the simulator in Unity, a mysql server with users, passwords and logs and a web of help and explanatory videos. In the simulator the student can virtually execute the essential tasks that are performed in a cell culture laboratory, such as thawing cells, seeding the cells, preparing and changing culture media and making cell subcultures. Cellusim is a training tool that allows users to discover the basics of cell culture techniques in a simple and fast way and without the economic costs or time consumption derived from doing the same work in a real laboratory. In order to evaluate the students' learning, Cellusim can be executed in training mode and in evaluation mode, allowing the student to perform all the processes as many times as necessary to become familiar with the protocols and when be able to execute them in evaluation mode. In evaluation mode, Cellusim records student errors in order to score the acquired training. In this communication we present the Cellusim project and the results of the first experiences with volunteer students of Master's Degrees in the School of Medicine.