Stanford Engineering Professor Ingmar Riedel-Kruse describes how he's creating biotic games in which humans play with real biological processes at microscopic scale. The goal is to enable crowd-sourcing of the scientific method to yield real-world advances in biotechnology.

1. Biotic Games
Interactive micro-biology for
Research,
Education,
and
Entertainment
Ingmar Riedel-Kruse
STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

2. Engineering and games
?
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

3. Questions
1. Can we bioengineer games?
2. What are these games like?
3. What are these games good for?
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

4. Games
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

5. What are games?
• “structured play”
• goals
• rules
• challenges
• interaction
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

6. Utility of games
• (“Just”) Entertainment
• Engaging / addictive -> coupling to secondary purpose
(“serious games” – C. Abt. 1970)
Fitness Education Rehabilitation
Activism New technology …???
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

7. Bioengineering
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

8. What is bioengineering?
• Biology as an engineering substrate
• Fusion of engineering and the life sciences
• Technology invention
• Scientific discovery
• Applications in medicine, food, energy, environment …
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

9. Future Stanford bioengineering building

10. Stanford bioengineering
Human Biomechanics Optogenetics
Scott Delp RNA logic gates
Christina Smolke Karl Deisseroth
Micro-fluidics – Steve Quake; Bubble logic - Manu Prakash ~500 um
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

11. Electrical vs. biological engineering
Transistor Electronic circuit “Tennis for two” Table Tennis
1958 2006; Xbox 360
1947 ~1950’s
Micro-fluidic valve Micro-fluidic circuit
?
~2000 ~2002
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

12. Bioengineered games
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

13. Bioengineered games
(i) Human interaction with biological material or processes
(ii) Enabled by modern biotechnology
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

14. “Biotic games”
(i) Human interaction with biological material or processes
(ii) Enabled by modern biotechnology
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

15. Paramecia and random walks
3 2
4 1
9
50 um
8
5
0.5 mm
7 6
0.5 sec
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

16. Action games with paramecia
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

17. Biotic game set-up
Biotic processor
Fluid chamber Game controller
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

18. Pinball
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

19. Pinball vs. “Biotic Pinball”
1 mm / real time
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

20. First publication on biotic games
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

21. Comments on the web
• useless.invention.ever
• Incredible!
• Are paramecia hurt? Unethical to play with life!
• It is more benign than picking a flower
• Cure cancer first!
• If they had Playstation in WW2, that is what the controller probably would look like.
• I really like Stanford having such multidisciplinary research opportunities.
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

22. Utility of future biotic games
1. Education
2. Large scale citizen science
3. Technology driver
4. …
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

23. Biotic games in education
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

24. First test with children in museum
Daniel Schwartz
Prof. School of Education, Stanford
Computer games for
education
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

25. First children test in museum
• ~40 children ~10 years old
• enjoyed direct visual through scope
• biotic game was too difficult to play
• hardly realized that they played with real paramecia
• no ethical concerns raised
-> different perceptions by age
-> implications for improved design
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

26. Games for research
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

27. Biotic games for large scale science
(citizen science / crowdsourcing / human computation)
Biomedical Experiments Operated by Online Gaming Community
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

28. Citizen science game: Beans
How many beans are in the jar?
Rules:
• Don’t talk
• Write down your guess
• Write down your name (other ID)
• Best guess wins
• Exchange guess with a stranger
• Let’s vote!
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

29. Biotic games for large scale science
Rhiju Das Adrien Trieulle
Assist. Prof. Computer Science /
Assist. Prof. Biochemistry, Stanford
Robotics; Carnegie Mellon
RNA folding
~10.000 players Computer graphics
Experimental feedback
Once per week for 8 players
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

30. RNA and folding
G U G G G A A A A A A C C C A C
Folding Sequence
problem problem
A A
C A C C C
A
G U G G G A
A A

31.
Eterna
:
Demonstra-on
http://eterna.cmu.edu/game.php?myType=PUZZLE&myVal=13399

32.
More
complex
puzzles

33.
EteRNA
Game
Verifica-on
Experiment
Loop
of
global
scale
game
playing
and
experimental
trial
&
error

34. EteRNA score
Time

35. EteRNA score

36. EteRNA score

37. EteRNA score

38. EteRNA score

39. Human
EteRNA score
Computer

40. Games as technological driver
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

41. Games as technological driver
(development of new technology and/or cost reductions)
3D video game graphics Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) Molecular dynamic simulations
Jen-Hsun Huang "Jen-Hsun Huang School of
(EE MS ’92 Stanford) Engineering Center."
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

42. Games as technological driver
(development of new technology and/or cost reductions)
Without video games
3D video game graphics Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) Molecular dynamic simulations
No deans office
Jen-Hsun Huang "Jen-Hsun Huang School of
(EE MS ’92 Stanford) Engineering Center."
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

43. Games as technological driver
(development of new technology and/or cost reductions)
3rd world mobile phone Integrating micro-fluidic
based diagnostics chips into phones?
Hongying Zhu et al. LOC 2010
Could biotic games lower costs for mobile diagnostics?
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

44. Outlook
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

45. Electrical vs. biological engineering
Transistor Electronic circuit “Tennis for two” Table Tennis
1958 2006; Xbox 360
1947 ~1950’s
???
Micro-fluidic valve Micro-fluidic circuit Biotic games
~2000 ~2002 ~2010
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu

46. Stanford Bio.X games initiative!
(Founded ~Spring 2010; Bio-X IIP seed-funding ~Fall 2010)!
Biotic Games Educational
video games
Rhiju Das Ingmar Riedel-Kruse Daniel Schwartz
(Asst Prof Biochemistry, Physics) (Asst Prof Bioengineering) (Prof Education)
Objectives:
1. Develop and build biotic games
2. Use biotic games to solve educational and scientific challenges
3. Nucleate a world-wide biotic games community

47. Summary Biotic Games
• Human player interacting with
real biology (experiments)
• Novel features
• Educational value
• Citizen science
• Technology driver
• …
• Stanford Bio.X games center
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STANFORD BIOENGINEERING Riedel-Kruse Lab ingmar@stanford.edu