Mining the human genome using virtual reality

Abstract

The analysis of genomic data and integration of diverse biological data sources has become increasingly difficult for researches in the life sciences. This problem is exacerbated by the speed with which new data is gathered through automated technology like DNA microarrays. We developed a virtual reality application for visualizing hierarchical relationships within a gene family and for visualizing networks of gene expression data. Integration of other information from multiple databases with these visualizations can aid pharmaceutical researchers in selecting target genes or proteins for new drugs. We found the application of virtual reality to the field of genomics to be successfull.