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Cyber-Physical Laboratories in Engineering and Science Education pp 271–304Cite as

Life-Science Experiments Online: Technological Frameworks and Educational Use Cases

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Abstract

We review remote (or “cloud”) lab technologies for life-science experimentation. Compared to other remote labs such as for physics, a particular challenge arises from the variability and stability of biological materials. We describe and compare four biology cloud labs that demonstrate different user interaction modes, i.e., real-time and turn-based interactive, programmed, and augmented batch, respectively, and furthermore regard their underlying hard and software architecture, biological content (“bio-ware”) (i.e., microswimmer phototaxis, slime mold chemotaxis, bacterial growth under antibiotics, RNA folding), and various other features such as the time required for one experiment or scalability to large user numbers. While we generally focus on educational use cases, research applications are included as well. General design rules for biology cloud experimentation labs are derived; open questions regarding future technology and opportunities for wide deployment are discussed. We hope that this review enables stakeholders from the life sciences, engineering, and education to join this relevant and exciting field.

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Acknowledgment

This work was supported by Stanford BioX IIP, Stanford VPOL, Stanford MediaX, and NSF Cyberlearning (NSF 1324753). We would like to thank from R. Das, B. Keep, and R. Waters. Note: This review article summarizes information from various sources; in case where this information was from our own lab’s previous publications we often edited from the original text, and while we cited those original sources, we did not put those text pieces in quotes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Bioengineering and Computer Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Zahid Hossain

  2. Department of Bioengineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Ingmar H. Riedel-Kruse

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  1. Zahid Hossain
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  2. Ingmar H. Riedel-Kruse
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Correspondence to Ingmar H. Riedel-Kruse .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Carinthia University of Applied Sciences, Villach, Austria

    Michael E. Auer

  2. Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois, USA

    Abul K.M. Azad

  3. University of Colima, Colima, Mexico

    Arthur Edwards

  4. University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

    Ton de Jong

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Hossain, Z., Riedel-Kruse, I.H. (2018). Life-Science Experiments Online: Technological Frameworks and Educational Use Cases. In: Auer, M., Azad, A., Edwards, A., de Jong, T. (eds) Cyber-Physical Laboratories in Engineering and Science Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76935-6_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76935-6_11

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-76935-6

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