Medicine Meets Virtual Reality 15 In Vivo, in Vitro, in Silico : Designing the Next in Medicine

Our culture is obsessed with design. Sometimes designers can fuse utility and fantasy to make the mundane apper fresh- a cosmetic repackaging of the same old thing. Because of this, medicine- grounded in the unforgiving realities of the sscientific method and peer review, and of flesh, blood, and pain- can sometimes cofuse "design" with mere 'prettifying." Design solves real problems, however. This collection of papers underwrites the importance of design for the MMVR community, within three different environments: in vivo, in vitro and in silico. in vivo: we design machines to explore our living bodies. Imaging devices, robots, and sensors move constantly inward, operating within smaller dimensions: system, organ, cell, DNA. in vitro: Using test tubes and Petri dishes, we isolate in vivo to better manipulate and measure biological conditions and reactions. in silico: We step out of the controlled in vitro environment and into a virtual reality. The silica mini-worlds of test tubes and Petri dishes are translated into mini-worlds contained within silicon chips. The future of medicine remains within all three environments: in vivo, in vitro, and in silico. Design is what makes these pieces fit together-the biological, the informational, the physical/material-into something new and more useful.