Virtualization of Hands-on Biotechnology Education

Prof. Van Vliet and MIT CBI, as part of the NIIMBL-funded program “Blended Learning for Training of Cell Therapy Manufacturing Personnel,” developed a comprehensive set of online and hands-on modules. Our goal is to convert, and integrate, these pre-existing materials into virtual teaching experiences, which allow learners to work through key aspects of the cell therapy manufacturing pipeline virtually. Virtual experiences allow for experiments to be delivered in a more time-efficient manner, removing some of the stagnant wait-times and inefficiencies of lab-based education. At the project’s completion, we will have developed virtual experiences that can be sustainably leveraged to teach key laboratory techniques to MIT undergraduate and graduate students.