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Partner Highlight: Mission: Nano

Aaron Guerro, Children's Museum of Houston and Ennio Tasciotti, Houston Methodist Research Institute

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to play the Mission: Nano game.

Funded by a NISE Network mini-grant, the Houston Methodist Research Institute (HMRI) and Rice University's Center for Technology in Teaching and Learning (CTTL) in Houston, TX partnered to develop a nanotechnology-based multimedia game app.  The product, Mission: Nano, educates players about uses of nanotechnology in medicine and inspires them to consider careers in the STEM sectors.

Mission: Nano consists of a series of four challenges to diagnose and treat a bone injury utilizing medical nanotechnology. Players can choose a "story mode" where they lead the doctor to complete all four challenges or a "practice mode" to complete the four challenges as quickly as possible. Mission: Nano is currently available in web and Android versions and is hosted on the Houston Methodist Research Institute’s website: http://www.houstonmethodist.org/mission-nano.  

Mission: Nano was developed under the supervision of Dr. Ennio Tasciotti, Co-Chair of the Department of NanoMedicine, Director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine, and Scientific Director of The Surgical Advances Technology Laboratory. The HMRI NanoMedicine department is a global leader in nanotechnology applications in healthcare and the Rice CTTL is an award-winning program that enriches education with technology to make learning more productive and engaging for students. The Rice CTTL portfolio currently includes games that teach kids about forensic science, infectious disease, and substance abuse (funded by the NIH, NIAID, and NIDA).

Find out more about what the Houston Methodist Research Institute’s NanoMedicine department is doing by visiting, http://www.houstonmethodist.org/for-health-professionals/department-programs/nanomedicine/ or contact Aaron Guerrero of the Children’s Museum of Houston, the NISE Network South Hub and Children’s Museum Hub Leader.