Englander Institute for Precision Medicine

How Mixed Reality is Transforming Collaborative Cancer Research

By Tim Hinchliffe.  Source: Sociable

The ability to visualize big data in 3D and use that data to collaborate across disciplines through Mixed Reality is transforming cancer research.

As opposed to Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented or Mixed Reality (AR, MR) works by mapping holograms over real, physical space through the help of a head set. With Mixed Reality, you can still see and interact with your immediate environment instead of being absorbed completely in a simulated world like with VR.

According to Fortune, “Microsoft refers to AR as mixed reality, and it is still a relatively new phenomenon that generated much interest after the popularity of last summer’s blockbuster mobile game,” Pokemon GO.

MIXED REALITY FOR CROSS-DISCIPLINE COLLABORATION

However, when it comes to cancer studies in the medical field, the Microsoft HoloLens Mixed Reality headset is helping researchers across disciplines collaborate in real-time in order to come up with better cures faster.

According to Microsoft’s HoloLens for Research Proposal, “High-definition holograms integrated with your real world will unlock all-new ways to create, communicate, work, and play.”

The collaborative function of the HoloLens has garnered praise from those who work directly with it in the medical field.

[caption caption="Alex Sigaras

“I think the thing that stands out with HoloLens, at least in our experience with it, is the ability to look both at the data and at the people at the right time,” said Alex Sigaras, research associate in computational biomedicine at the Weill Cornell Medicine in New York.

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