The Impact of the Scientific Metaverse on the Biotech Industry: How Virtual Reality Helped Researchers Fight Back Against COVID-19

ABSTRACT

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic not only precipitated a digital revolution but also led to one of the largest scientific collaborative open-source initiatives. The EXaSCale smArt pLatform Against paThogEns for CoronaVirus (EXSCALATE4CoV) consortium, led by Dompé farmaceutici S.p.A., brought together 18 global organizations to counter international pandemics more rapidly and efficiently. The consortium also partnered with Nanome, an extended reality software company whose software facilitates the visualization, modification, and simulation of molecules via augmented reality, mixed reality, and virtual reality applications. To characterize the molecular structure of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and to identify promising drug targets, the EXSCALATE4CoV team utilized methods such as homology modeling, molecular dynamics simulations, high-throughput virtual screening, docking, and other computational procedures. Nanome provided analysis of those computational procedures and supplied virtual reality headsets to help scientists better understand and interact with the molecular dynamics and key chemical interactions of SARS-CoV-2. Nanome's collaborative ideation platform enables scientific breakthroughs across research institutions in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic and other diseases. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.