PuzzleDock : An Immersive Protein Docking Environment

In molecular biology, protein docking aims at finding the conformation in which two proteins are attached together in their native state. Several software approaches for docking already exist, which still rely on conventional interaction techniques, and have not yet taken advantage of the immersiveness nor expeditiousness made available by the new generation of virtual reality devices. We present PuzzleDock, an immersive approach that allows users to perform protein docking in a more interactive way, while simultaneously providing a score about the interaction between the proteins. We enable the possibility of freely manipulating the 3D structure of the proteins in an immersive environment using hand gestures in 3D space. This way, the docking process is handled as an educational game consisting of a complex 3D puzzle where the user tries to fit together two rigid pieces, each representing one protein per hand, while being guided by an accuracy score. In order to help solving this problem, we implemented simple game mechanics based on commonly used virtual reality controllers to achieve a more expedite and spatial experience when compared to more conventional approaches. Our method was tested by several professional users, who expressed a high degree of satisfaction regarding its efficiency, namely in the natural manipulation that the process is carried out, which had not been achieved before by previous solutions.