{"id":3641,"date":"2022-11-11T10:45:55","date_gmt":"2022-11-11T10:45:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/learningspaces.dundee.ac.uk\/dundeeuniculture\/?p=3641"},"modified":"2025-09-15T10:46:45","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T09:46:45","slug":"gamifying-research-with-the-wellcome-centre-for-anti-infectives-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/gamifying-research-with-the-wellcome-centre-for-anti-infectives-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Gamifying Research with the Wellcome Centre for Anti-Infectives Research\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

The late great Nichelle Nichols once said \u201cScience is not a boy’s game, it’s not a girl’s game. It’s everyone’s game. It’s about where we are and where we’re going.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Here at the <\/span>Wellcome Centre for Anti-Infectives Research<\/span><\/a>, we love games and science. We believe it gives people a chance to chat, to share their ideas, to be active participants in the process. Our public engagement work is full of them. Some have been a short journey from original to adaptation, while others have been through a great deal more development.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Two
Dundee’s finest at work<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of our long-standing games is Drug Discovery Snakes and Ladders. Developed in the early days of the Drug Discovery Unit, this porting of the classic game brings some of the trials and tribulations of our work to life. Perhaps you will find a serendipitous compound which has all the properties you need to make an excellent medicine. Much more likely, one of the many factors in your medicine won\u2019t work, and your progress will be brutally reset. In real life there are many more snakes than ladders \u2013 but we have a balance for our younger players.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Close
Drug discovery projects can be riddled with problems<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Following the <\/span>Wellcome<\/span> Centre\u2019s launch in 2017, we worked with our fabulous public engagement colleagues from the wider School of Life Sciences to create more ambitious games. <\/span>We\u2019re particularly grateful to our colleague<\/span>s<\/span> Erin <\/span>Hardee<\/span> and Amy Cameron<\/span> for <\/span>their <\/span>endless support and creativity.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Two
We would like to emphasise that this was one of the fastest times ever!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One idea we had was to make an escape room, themed around drug discovery. The process is essentially a series of complex molecular puzzles, with medicines needing to fit into the right bits of parasitic proteins. What sounds like a simple process was rather complex, and it took us over a year to get the game into a fully functional form. We owe a debt of thanks to the many researchers who prototyped it, and our consultants at Agent November. Above all, we learned to always empty the bin!<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"People
Behind the scenes on the making of our \u2018terrified hostages\u2019 movie<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We also wanted to use the space in the School of Life <\/span>Sciences, and<\/span> have used it to create a larger than life board game where people become the tokens. We developed Heal the World in 2018. The game is set on a huge world map, made of cities and tape-lines connecting them, in the CTIR Street. Players have to collaborate to fight a deadly pandemic. What seemed at the time a distant possibility has obviously gained new meaning over the past couple of <\/span>years.<\/span> We\u2019ve started tentatively playing it again post-<\/span>Covid<\/span>, and have had some fascinating conversations.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"People
\u2018Heal the World\u2019, aka \u2018Let\u2019s Infect!\u2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As you might see, we\u2019re huge advocat<\/span>e<\/span>s <\/span>for gamification of research. <\/span>We\u2019ve even started running sessions with OPD exploring the idea. If you want to find out more about anything that we do, have a look on our<\/span><\/span> website<\/span><\/span><\/a>, and give us a follow on <\/span><\/span>Twitter<\/span><\/span><\/a> and<\/span> <\/span>Instagram<\/span><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The late great Nichelle Nichols once said \u201cScience is not a boy’s game, it’s not a girl’s game. It’s everyone’s game. It’s about where we are and where we’re going.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Here at the Wellcome Centre for Anti-Infectives Research, we love games and science. We believe it gives people a chance to chat, to share their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":550,"featured_media":3645,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/550"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3641"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6213,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3641\/revisions\/6213"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}