V-Frog gets jump on digital dissection
Program developed at UB spin-off firm reduces mess and, for some, ethical qualms
One of the country’s most vocal animal rights groups is spreading the word about a virtual dissection program developed and sold by a University at Buffalo high-tech spin-off company.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a Virginia-based activist group that works, among other goals, to end what it considers needless dissections of laboratory animals in schools across the country, provided the introductions and a $5,000 grant so that a North Carolina community college could test the invention of Getzville-based Tactus Technologies in its biology classes this year.
“We were really pleased to work with a forward-thinking company like Tactus Technologies,” said PETA spokesman Justin Goodman.
V-Frog is the first product to be rolled out by the company, which has been working on different forms of virtual modeling and design since its founding in 2001.
Up to now, the entrepreneurs honored as Inventors of the Year in 2005 have been offering their services to engineers and attorneys, creating virtual models of everything from planned construction projects to crime and accident scenes.
The firm, founded by Jim Mayrose, Thenkurussi Kesavadas and Kevin Chugh, now employs 10 people, mostly computer programmers with some engineers and an educational specialist.
V-Frog, now available in institutional and home editions, is presented as a way for students to dissect a virtual frog in a way that affords all the understanding that would be gained from taking apart the real thing, yet avoids the expense, mess and, for some, ethical qualms involved in the use of real animals.
Already on the Tactus drawing boards, says CEO Mayrose, is a virtual cadaver that can be sold to colleges and medical schools to train physicians, nurses and other health care professionals on the finer points of human anatomy.
While the planned human version of the Tactus software is more likely to be a supplement than a replacement for medical school training, Mayrose said, the virtual version of a frog in a pan should be all that general biology students will ever need.
“We believe it can replace actual frog dissection in just about all cases,” Mayrose said.
Nahel Awadallah, a biology instructor at Johnston Community College in Smithfield, N.C., suspects Mayrose is correct. But it is now up to him and his colleagues and students to test that hypothesis.
“There are many animations available online,” Awadallah said, “but nothing else that allows student the hands-on experience of actual dissection.”
V-Frog allows students to dissect a virtual frog, using a computer mouse to manipulate a virtual scalpel and probe the muscles, organs and systems of the animal.
The computerized process, Awadallah said, not only avoids the expense of frogs and the hazard of chemicals, it also allows students to run through a procedure over and over until they understand, as well as see how a living frog’s inner workings function. Early results of his testing suggest that students who use V-Frog understand the material at least as well as those still dissecting frogs, fetal pigs and other biological specimens.
Graphics included in the program also illustrate how the parts of a frog correspond to the parts of a human, which is a key reason why students who aren’t going to be doctors, vets or scientists are required to do the dissections in the first place.
“Comparative anatomy,” Awadallah said, “that was the key to getting the other faculty members on board.”
The students, on the other hand, didn’t need much convincing, the instructor said.
“A delegation of students has come to thank me for offering this alternative,” Awadallah said. “There is no need for us to do the amount of dissections we are doing in colleges and universities right now.”
The National Science Teachers Association last year revised its official position to support the ability of teachers to incorporate alternatives to real dissection if they think it better meets the needs of their students. But Francis Eberle, executive director of the group, also warns that exclusively using virtual reality or other models over the real thing might leave a gap in a student’s education.
“Models can lead to misconceptions as to what the reality is,” Eberle, who holds a Ph.D. in education, said. “It’s pretty hard to connect to what the real world is like if all you see is pictures.”
Computer models, he said, have their greatest use explaining concepts that cannot otherwise be brought into the classroom, such as climate change or the geological history of the earth. In biology, Eberle said, alternatives such as V-Frog are useful for enhancing the memorization of terms and basic ideas, but less so for grasping laboratory techniques.
V-Frog has been evaluated by teachers and administrators in the Ken-Ton School District and found to be just the thing to engage the computer-literate generation. “I thought it was just wonderful,” said Barbara Battaglia, the district’s chief accountability officer. “It is very engaging to the tech-savvy students. They were instantly fascinated by it and very quickly learned all the ways in which you could move it all around.”
But, Battaglia added, New York State Regents policy still requires real dissection as part of the lab component of a biology Regents Diploma. Virtual substitutes are not yet accepted, she said, and more research will have to be done before any changes are made on that score.
Such tools could be useful for students who object to dissection on ethical grounds, Battaglia said, though that is an issue her district has not had to face.
Mike Kankolenski, science teacher at Lewiston-Porter High School in Youngstown, also likes V-Frog.
“It’s an excellent program,” said Kankolenski. “It has a lot of applications for hands-on lab, research and interactive opportunities in the classroom.”
Tactus Technologies estimates that there are more than 6 million animal dissections in American schools every year, and as many as 20 million a year worldwide.
Coming up with a human version, Mayrose said, will be a much more complicated project. But, he said, the fact that human cadavers are always in short supply should mean his company’s model will be in great demand.
As with V-Frog, students examining a virtual cadaver will be able to go through each procedure over and over, without worrying about ruining the cadaver for their next project — or for their lab partner.
It will also provide much more detailed understanding of body architecture and function for health care professionals other than doctors, such as physical and occupational therapists, said Mayrose, who is also an assistant professor of technology at Buffalo State College.
Another Tactus brainstorm in development is a project called Protean. It is a process that uses a glove to transmit the exact dimensions of a model, created by a product designer or a cartoonist, into a computer for exact replication. Among the potential customers for such a device, Mayrose said, are the Walt Disney Company and Nike.
For more information: www.tactustech.com; www.peta.org/dissection; www.nsta.org.
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