Lab profile: Turning students into scientists through VR training and outreach

The educational challenges UCL School of Pharmacy faces

Training the next generation of pharmacists starts at a young age. Scientists will take time from their teaching schedules, and PhD students away from their studies to visit secondary school pupils in the hope that they can inspire others to study science subjects such as pharmacy and chemistry. The time away from research and learning has to be carefully balanced, especially when there’s a limited number of young people you can reach.

The UCL School of Pharmacy also invites potential pharmacy students to visit their labs. Space constraints mean that only a few secondary school students can visit at a time. And when they do, it often impacts other people in the room.

The challenges don’t end there. When it comes to teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students, one of the greatest struggles for professors is explaining 3D concepts using 2D tools. Recreating the chemical structure of molecules can be a difficult task when using slides and textbooks.

Also, equipment like high-performance liquid chromatography machines (HPLC) require specialist training. And introducing students to its complex processes can be tricky in a restricted physical space. Then there are financial factors: mistakes are bound to be made when learning how to use the equipment and repair costs are high.

How the UCL School of Pharmacy uses VR for education

1. Hands-on training

The UCL lab’s digital twin is the perfect training ground for UCL students. Rather than simply scanning the lab, the School of Pharmacy team have filled the virtual space with 3D replicas of everything from seeding plates to desktop organizers, and clips to HPLC machines. Without stepping into the lab, students can be trained on how to use expensive equipment in a more relaxed setting, without the fear of causing damage.

Printing files used for 3D printing are easily transferred to the virtual environment, saving Dr Hilton’s team from rendering them twice. The result is an immersive space that allows the pharmacists of the future to become familiar with a lab environment and the equipment inside.

Dr Stephen Hilton (UCL School of Pharmacy) said: “It took about six months to get the digital lab. We get faster as we go along. It now takes about two hours to add a new piece of equipment. As we develop new pieces of equipment, we already have the CAD ready to drop into AI, so they go in straight away.”

Through VR, students are taught flow chemistry processes without impacting the physical space and others who use it. Any health and safety worries around handling equipment and hazardous materials is completely removed.

But as Dr Hilton says: “VR is an all-in-one object for interaction, not purely an immersion device.” The virtual lab is digitally connected. With the right training in place, scientists and students can remotely control and monitor real-world chemical reactions too.

If they need guidance along the way, the lab includes AI avatars of the Lab 427 team. The virtual characters use a combination of 80% knowledge and 20% AI to hold conversations with users and share information, freeing up valuable human time.

2. Outreach and marketing

VR has revolutionized the lab’s approach to outreach. The School of Pharmacy can either share the Lab 427 software online and through VR, or loan headsets to secondary schools where they’re needed.

The headsets give children access to a leading science lab without leaving the classroom. Secondary schools that might struggle to access the lab because of time, location and administrative constraints are given the chance to conduct experiments in a safe and interactive way.

Dr Hilton also uses the headsets as a marketing tool. By using Meta Quest’s recording feature while working and sharing the footage online, the professor has spread his message about medicinal chemistry and VR beyond traditional borders – all while avoiding the need to invest in and set up camera equipment.

VR and education at UCL: The results

VR has transformed the learning experience for UCL students. The potential to monitor and control reactions remotely, share knowledge in real time and become trained in complex processes has brought theory to life and opened up possibilities that the school never thought were possible.

One of UCL’s biggest successes with VR is the increase in the number of students they can train. Without headsets, Dr Hilton trained between 5 and 10 people at a time in the real-world lab. Even then, it was difficult to gather more than 2 or 3 people around a piece of equipment. With time and space implications and paperwork to be filled out, lab visits from secondary school students only happened once every 6 months.

Today, the School of Pharmacy regularly trains between 30 and 50 students at a time using Meta Quest headsets. The sessions are held more frequently too, as the scientists can train up to 30 schools a month.

It’s not only the number of secondary school and undergraduate students trained that has been a positive result, but the ability to reach a more diverse group of students too. Headsets bring the lab environment to schoolchildren who wouldn’t normally consider studying pharmacy. Meanwhile, the avatars are modelled on a diverse group of PhD students who make excellent role models. The AI technology powering the avatars works in a wide range of languages, helping to break down barriers even further and ensure that UCL inspires the best young talent available.

Quest headsets have also helped to make students more engaged thanks to what Dr Hilton calls a “pure information environment”.

The future of VR at the UCL School of Pharmacy

What does the future hold for Lab 427 and VR? Dr Hilton predicts more global partnerships and virtual institutions. Perhaps one of his most exciting ideas is to use VR in the interview stage when students apply to UCL for PhDs. He hopes the ability to ask candidates to show rather than tell how to perform experiments will filter out AI-generated applications.

“The future is incredibly exciting with virtual reality and digital technologies. It’s a game-changing approach to how we will do everything.” — Dr Stephen Hilton, UCL

And what’s his advice for other organizations considering using VR? “As soon as you try it, you get it. You’ll realize, there is no way we are not doing this.”

This article was originally published by Meta.

Links

• Original article by Meta
• Dr Stephen Hilton's academic profile
• UCL School of Pharmacy
• UCL Faculty of Life Sciences