REACT Mission
In addition to its scientific contribution, REACT's mission is to democratize knowledge!
Software for the benefit of science
This research used in silico validation through molecular docking and ADMET. For this, free software for scientific use was used, such as AlphaFold, AutoDock 4, Avogrado, UCSF ChimeraX-1.8, BIOVIA Discovery Studio, ADMETlab 3.0, and GROMACS.
Image: Docking on AutoDock 4 (FORLI, S. et al., 2016) (MORRIS et al., 2009)
Data availability
At REACT, science is most powerful when it is open, accessible, and shared. From the beginning, our team understood that the impact of any discovery or breakthrough in combating Pseudomonas aeruginosa —or any other microbial threat—depends on how that knowledge is disseminated and used by other researchers, healthcare professionals, policymakers, and even independent developers. That’s why we’re committed to popularizing and democratizing scientific knowledge by integrating technological innovation, transparency, and global collaboration. All of REACT data is available here.
Super Trunfo Game
Finally, educational materials will be developed in the Super Trunfo game line about bacterial toxins and their interactions with inhibitors. This type of playful resource will aim to encourage students and professionals interested in clinical microbiology to popularize knowledge about the implications of toxins produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa in human infections.
In this way, the democratization of scientific knowledge will overcome passive sharing as it will actively educate diverse audiences about the problems linked to bacterial resistance and the importance of the continuous development of new antimicrobial therapies.
World in Minecraft Education
Additionally, effective ways are sought to democratize knowledge of the findings of this research in a tripartite manner to reach an audience beyond academia. These steps are: sharing the visual representation with the possibility of modification of exotoxin A in a gamified environment, displaying the data on an open source platform, and creating educational material.
An important initiative related to the representation of the toxin is the creation of an educational space within Minecraft: Education Edition (2016). This was carried out in favor of the digital materialization of bacterial toxins. This virtual environment is already an interactive platform in which students and professionals can learn and experiment with microbiology while exploring intricate scientific concepts through gamification. Such representation can increase the incidence of interest in bioinformatics among children and adolescents, which would generate scientific discoveries and a less stigmatized educational culture that places microbiology in a category of knowledge that is not very accessible (CALLAGHAN, 2016).
CALLAGHAN, Noelene. Investigating the role of Minecraft in educational learning environments. Educational Media International, vol. 53, no. 4, p. 244–260, 2016. Available: <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09523987.2016.1254877>. Accessed on: October 7, 2024.
FORLI, Stefano et al. Computational protein–ligand docking and virtual drug screening with the AutoDock suite. Nature protocols, vol. 11, no. 5, p. 905-919, 2016. Available at: < https://www.nature.com/articles/nprot.2016.051 >. Accessed on: 5 Aug. 2024.
MINECRAFT: EDUCATION EDITION. Developed and published by Microsoft. 2016.
MORRIS, GM et al. AutoDock4 and AutoDockTools4: automated docking with selective receptor flexibility. J. Computational Chemistry, v. 30, n. 16, p. 2785-2791, 2009. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm .nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2760638/. Accessed: August 11, 2024.