"In order to design a new drug, you have to see how a chemical compound will fit. With this device not only will you see it, but you can feel it," said Dr. Edgar Meyer, a biochemist whose lab at Texas A&M University recently made a breakthrough in the ability to calculate the forces of movement within a molecule via an haptic device dubbed "Touch."
"Involving the extra sense of feeling for the chemist gives an advantage in designing drugs," he added.
Haptic, from the Greek word "to feel, "is a relatively new field of computer graphics.
Since its introduction in the 1960s, computer graphics have become much more attractive to the eye, but the information content is basically the same as 30 years ago, Meyer said, mainly because interactive devices like the mouse are inadequate.
"Haptics is the next step beyond the graphic interface - joining the computer and the human for the tactile, the touch, the feeling," he said. The device includes a hand-held baton which, when moved, interacts with an image on the computer screen to indicate what is being felt.
One application being studied elsewhere would enable a doctor to perform surgery via the Internet using the baton to "feel" the difference in soft tissue, hard tissue and bone, for example, on a patient who may be in another location but viewable on the computer screen.
Yet Meyer's lab looked even deeper.
With decades of molecular research experience aimed at human diseases, his team wondered how the molecule of a disease would "feel" when a substance was applied in order to block its ability to cause illness.
Simply speaking, a healthy molecule made up of various a
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Contact: Kathleen Phillips
ka-phillips@tamu.edu
979-845-2872
Texas A&M University
16-Jul-2002