Supervision of 3D Multimodal Rendering for Protein-protein Virtual Docking

Abstract

Protein-Protein docking is a recent practice in biological research which involves using 3D models of proteins to predict the structure of complexes formed by these proteins. Currently, the most common methods used for docking are fully computational approaches, combined with molecular visualization tools. However, these approaches are time consuming and provide a large number of potential solutions. Our basic hypothesis is that Virtual Reality (VR) interactions can combine the benefits of multimodal rendering, biologist's expertise in the field of docking with automated algorithms, in order to increase efficiency in reaching docking solutions. To this end, we have designed an immersive and multimodal application for molecular docking. Visual, audio and haptic feedbacks are combined to communicate biological information, help manipulating proteins and exploring possible solutions of docking. Multimodal distribution is supervised by a rule-based software module, depending on the interaction context.