This week, I organized a session for 23andMe in Second Life and it turned out to be quite an interesting event. Jen McCabe Gorman gave Second Life a try and listed some reasons why to use it in health 2.0:

• hell of a lot cheaper than traveling
• More Interesting Q&A
• Flying in Second Life was a blast
• Credibility is established beforehand
• Speed

Medical & Psychological Sites In Second Life:

• Second Life in Practice (Faculty Ideas about Technology)

• No Paralysis in Second Life (Medgadget):

• Sex and disability seminar: another great success! (Sexual Health SIM)

23andMe, one of the (if not the) most famous companies focusing on personalized genetics, presented a slideshow today in Second Life in the latest session of the Scifoo Lives On series. The speakers were Erin Davis (science writer) and Joyce Tung (human geneticist). The title was 23andMe and 23andWe. Details here.

Live coverage starts (Pacific Time):

• 9:30: The poster is up, everything seems to be ready. The first speaker, Erin, just arrived. The other residents are having a rest…

• 9:40: The audience is slowly bigger and bigger. You can also follow us on Twitter. Our speaker, Joyce, just arrived. Here are both speakers:

• 9:55: A few more people and some weird creatures arrived.

• 9:58: Here is the crowd. We are really thankful to Second Nature for the place.

• 10:05: I launched the session.

Welcome on Second Nature island!

Today’s Scifoo lives on session will feature 23andMe, a privately held biotech company focusing on personalized genetics. Two members of their editorial board will present a slideshow about their service, research and the future plans. Please welcome Erin Cline Davis, Ph.D. (SL: Luttibelle Eames ) who received her Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Physiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

and Joyce Tung, Ph.D., Human Geneticist (SL: Joyce Footman ) who pursued a Ph.D. in Genetics at the University of California, San Francisco. Please feel free to ask them questions after the presentation. Thank you!

• 10:10: They started the presentation (excerpts):

• 10:11: The SNP chip analyzes about 600,000 specific points in the genome that are known to vary. It’s important to understand that this is NOT sequencing, which would look at every single point in the genome.

• 10:13: Samples are analyzed using an Illumina HumanHap550+ BeadChip plus a SNP chip custom designed by 23andMe scientists. The 23andMe custom SNP chip allows us to analyze the Y chromosome and mitochondrial genome (for paternal and maternal ancestry purposes) in much greater depth than conventional SNP chips.

• 10:16: While they’re talking about Gene Journal, the audience is growing hugely…

• 10:18: Your DNA tells you more than just what your genetics say about certain physical traits (such as ear wax type or lactose tolerance) or what conditions you might be at risk for — it can also tell you about where your ancestors came from.

• 10:21: Sharing your genome is really as simple as sending an invitation. Because we understand that people may have different comfort levels when it comes to sharing their genetic information, we offer two levels of sharing to choose from.

• 10:24: Here are our two speakers, Joyce and Erin:

• 10:27: We now turn to 23andWe: 23andWe is consumer enabled research or as we like to call it, Research 2.0.

• 10:31: It’s important to remember that a version of a SNP that is associated with a condition is not necessarily causing the condition. It may just be a marker that is linked to the truly causative DNA variation.

• 10:32: Genome wide association studies are in the focus as you can see:

• 10:35: 23andWe is a new way of doing research that will bring researchers and individuals together in a dynamic, web-based environment. By removing the obstacles of geography and the cost of maintaining multiple study sites, 23andWe hopes to enable large studies that would otherwise be infeasible. 23andWe is a serious research enterprise.
  

• 10:38: The process: research proposal, data collection, data analysis, publication…

• 10:41: We’re very excited about the potential for this project to show how the multimedia capabilities of the web can really enhance health research… We think 23andMe is a first step towards the concept of personalized medicine. We are now able to give customers access to technology that was not that long ago restricted to specialized laboratories. People can actually see what the latest research might mean for them.

• 10:43: It’s time for questions: How will you get Informed Consents from every person for every study? Who actually owns the DNA results and samples…..?

• 10:45: That’s a hard one… are you excited/concerned that you are providing the tools for any group of people to get together and self-test on “snake oil” compounds ?

• 10:48: More and more hard questions… Erin must type fast: we are as concerned as you guys are about privacy. we really have no interest in violating your trust. our business only works if we can maintain your privacy.

• 10:52: Strange creatures, sometimes strange questions: These tools allow for the other extreme, that is a group of people getting together on their own without medical assistance to self test and analyze. Will this be a problem ?

• 10:57: Joyce: In the future, we hope to use some of the data from our chip to provide information about copy number variation.

• 10:59: The question of the day award goes to… and as also Google is involved (is that right?) how long will it take until my search habits will be matched up with my genome?

• 11:01: Wow, that sounds great: We will be encouraging our users to submit ideas for research studies that we can conduct.

• 11:04: It’s over! The presentation was fantastic, Erin and Joyce answered all the questions. Thank you, 23andMe for the presentation and Second Nature for the island and place. See you next time!

Live coverage ends…

Just a quick reminder. 23andMe, one of the (if not the) most famous companies focusing on personalized genetics, will present a slideshow in Second Life in the next session of the Scifoo Lives On series.

• Time: the 24th of June at 10:00 AM Pacific Time (= 17:00 GMT).
• The speakers: Erin Davis (science writer) and Joyce Tung (human geneticist)
• The title: 23andMe and 23andWe

If you would like to participate, here is the teleport link and some details as well.

I already set the poster up:

Just a quick reminder. 23andMe, one of the (if not the) most famous companies focusing on personalized genetics, will present a slideshow in Second Life in the next session of the Scifoo Lives On series.

• Time: the 24th of June at 10:00 AM Pacific Time (= 17:00 GMT).
• The speakers: Erin Davis (science writer) and Joyce Tung (human geneticist)
• The title: 23andMe and 23andWe

If you would like to participate, here is the teleport link and some details as well.

I’m looking forward to meeting you inside Second Life.

I’ve written dozens of posts about the medical educational opportunities of Second Life, the virtual world. But we have to make it clear: even if we have great buildings in Second Life, Linden Lab might sell the whole virtual world anytime. Many of the residents think they have no guarantee for their facilities. Second, we focus on case studies and brainstorming during our medical exercices and not on practical examinations due to the basic features of Second Life.

Forterra is trying to solve this problem from a different aspect:

Forterra’s On-Line Interactive Virtual Environment (OLIVE™) is a software platform that enables customers, partners, and developers to build persistent virtual worlds where users can collaborate over networks to communicate, train, rehearse, analyze, experiment, socialize, and entertain. For the first time in our industry, external parties can create and control their own virtual worlds through the OLIVE Software Development Kit (SDK).

The Medical Content Pack includes 163 3D products and 10 scenes that will supplement the base 3D products and scenes included in any license of OLIVE. The combination of 3D assets from the Medical and Base Content Packs include a hospital with a patient waiting room, emergency rooms, operating rooms, treatment rooms, bathrooms, with associated medical equipment to make use of these rooms realistic. The equipment includes items like gurneys, IV drips, bed monitors, hospital beds, oxygen carts, and clipboards. Medical vehicles include ambulances, police cars, and fire engines.

What do they provide?

• Medical Skills Training
• Emergency Response
• Therapy and Rehabilitation
• Public Safety Training
• Medical Procedures Training

Here is an example of hospital training with the Forterra system:

Second Life is for free but we have to deal with limited possibilities while Forterra is, of course, not for free, but totally secure.

How could we combine the opportunities of Second Life, the virtual world, with the advantages of reality? Check out Second Life Fitness. You need something like this:

And it leads to this:

If you ride the bike, you can fly in Second Life. There are currently 54 users (with a total distance of 974 km).

Isn’t it a fantastic idea?

More about Second Life:

• Top 10: Virtual Medical Sites in Second Life!
• How and Why to use Second Life for Education?

• Nature’s role in e-Science: Second Life conference LIVE
• SciFoo lives on in Second Life: Web 2.0 and Medicine

• Live Blogging Today: First Medical Simulation in Second Life!
• Everything about Second Life and Medical Education
• Scientific Research and Medicine in Second Life

After months of e-mails and talks, now it is official: 23andMe, one of the (if not the) most famous companies focusing on personalized genetics, will present a slideshow in Second Life in the next session of the Scifoo Lives On series on the 24th of June at 10:00 AM Pacific Time (= 17:00 GMT).

I’m really happy because they have the potential to prove the advantages of Second Life in global communication. And 23andMe will be the first genetic company to give a talk in the virtual world. They seem to be quite open to the web 2.0 world as they will be one of the sponsors for the BioBarCamp that is a more than interesting unconference organized be Attila Csordás (unfortunately, I live in the other side of the world…).

If you would like to participate:

• Register at Secondlife.com
• Download the software.
• Log in and teleport here.

That’s all. If you can’t have access to Second Life (due to graphic card problems, e.g.), don’t worry, I will blog live about the whole event.

The Scifoo Lives On series is a continuation of the SciFoo conference in Second Life.

A screenshot of one of our past events focusing on web 2.0 and medicine

Some past events:

• Nature’s role in e-Science: Second Life conference LIVE
• Famous Scientific Bloggers in Second Life: LIVE
• Live Coverage: SciFoo lives on session about videos in science
• Live Coverage Now: SciFoo lives on session about the definition of Open Science
• SciFoo lives on in Second Life: Web 2.0 and Medicine
• SciFoo lives on: in Second Life

Stephen T Huang, Maged N Kamel Boulos and Robert P Dellavalle published an article in EMBO Reports about Second Life, the virtual world under the title, Scientific discourse 2.0. Will your next poster session be in Second Life? Some excerpts:

Second Life provides a space in which scientists interested in the freedom of discourse have held meetings to discuss the use of the Internet for medical education and the exchange of ideas. Following on their heels, scientific publishers such as Nature Publishing Group have used their virtual ‘real estate’ in Second Life® to offer scientists access to the literature, databases, discussion forums and other applications. The Wiley publication group (Hoboken, NJ, USA) has opened a virtual bookstore on Second Life® and has published many online guides to becoming an entrepreneur within the online universe.

The question is whether there is sufficient interest within the scientific and medical communities to use online universes to apply a Web 2.0 approach to discuss scientific issues or, more generally, to enhance communication among researchers.

Some of my posts dedicated to the educational opportunities of Second Life:

• Top 10: Virtual Medical Sites in Second Life!
• How and Why to use Second Life for Education?

• Nature’s role in e-Science: Second Life conference LIVE
• Famous Scientific Bloggers in Second Life: LIVE
• Live Coverage: SciFoo lives on session about videos in science
• Live Coverage Now: SciFoo lives on session about the definition of Open Science
• SciFoo lives on in Second Life: Web 2.0 and Medicine
• SciFoo lives on: in Second Life

• Live Blogging Today: First Medical Simulation in Second Life!
• Everything about Second Life and Medical Education
• Genetics in Second Life
• Virtual Medical Center: the Future of Medical Education
• NHS London in Second Life
• Interview about the genetic revolution of Second Life
• Electronic Medical Records in a Virtual Hospital: Interview!
• Scientific Research and Medicine in Second Life