Projects
[MHRD] Sakshat Amrita Virtual Labs
Amrita lab courses richly rely upon new up-to-date content and various techniques that require a new synergy of knowledge and experimental implementation. Hence a new kind of experimental science that can be brought as a virtual simulation based laboratory is being established. In partnership with the Government of India’s Sakshat initiative of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, these Amrita Virtual Labs, focus on helping students retain the real feel of a laboratory, while conducting the experiment from an internet-enabled computer terminal, much in the same way he or she would, in a real lab.
As key part of the project, the School of Biotechnology will study and use mathematical techniques in biology to study, hypothesize and demonstrate complex biological functions. Other labs in biotechnology, physical and chemical sciences, nanoscience are the major contributions from Amrita. Amrita University jointly participates with IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur, IIT Bombay, IIT Madras, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Guwahati, IIT Roorkee, IIIT Hyderabad and Dayalbagh University.
As part of the virtual lab project pilot, a virtual neurophysiology lab has been developed in the short period. Virtual neurophysiology techniques like brain slicing, patch clamping, action potential in neurons, voltage and current clamp protocols have been implemented via user-interactive animations and through use of detailed mathematical simulators.
A paper titled Biotechnology Virtual Labs – Integrating Wet-lab Techniques and Theoretical Learning for Enhanced Learning at Universities was presented at the 2010 International Conference on Data Storage and Data Engineering (DSDE), Feb 10, at Bangalore. Paper authors included Dr. Shyam Diwakar, Dr. Krishnashree Achuthan and Ms.Prema Nedungadi. The paper is included in IEEE Xplore, and was submitted to the Thomson ISI, Ei Compendex and INSPEC for indexing.
Main PI: Prof. Krishnashree Achuthan
Several virtual labs are already online for public use. [Visit Website]