Interview with Professor Kostas Kostarelos

Professor Kostarelos is the Chair of Nanomedicine and is Head of the Centre for Drug Delivery Research, at the School of Pharmacy, University of London. He recently worked with gaming company PlayGen to design and build a ‘serious game’ around the role of nanotechnologies in health. Gaming has great potential to be a useful dialogue tool and dialogue practitioners will recognise and share many of the challenges faced by those involved in creating these games. Sciencewise caught up with Professor Kostarelos find out his thoughts on communicating nanotechnology to the public and the opportunities offered by science based computer games.

Tell us about your involvement in the project.

Playgen came up with the idea of developing a computer game for young people focusing on the issues of nanotechnology and health. The project was funded by the Wellcome Trust. They initially contacted me for some advice to ensure that the first version of the game was as scientifically accurate as possible. Following this, we then developed a second version of the game. For the second version we began in the laboratory with a problem that we, the scientists, were trying to solve. The problem we examined was lung cancer and the role that nanotechnology can have towards designing new treatment options. We gave PlayGen a simplified version of the pathological manifestation of lung cancer and they designed the gaming environment around this.

You can try out the nanotechnology game here

What did you hope to achieve by developing a game around nanotechnologies?

Our objective from day one was to engage younger people in issues around nanotechnology in an exciting way. We wanted to be able to expose young people to these complicated scientific issues in an accessible and interactive ways. The NanomedicineV2 game was given away free to schools (and then online) to be used as an educational tool for 8-12 year olds. The idea was for schools to be able to use a tool that had a strong scientific basis, but at the same time engage the children’s imagination.

The game addressed two scientific perspectives: firstly, educating young people about lung cancer, public health and what can be done to avoid lung cancer. Secondly, we wanted to educate young people about nanotechnology and how to engineer at the nanoscale.

Do you think engaging with the public can be of value to science and scientists?

I think as a scientist you always benefit from talking to people who aren’t scientists. But you have to be open to a bit of self-critique. As a scientist I’m always testing my ideas with the outside world. It’s like looking at the reflection of one's image; We can benefit when we realise that what we do as scientists has to make sense to the wider world too. The scientific process is still the same – start with a hypothesis and construct a logical argument – but the language for the public is distant from the one we use every day in our projects. This communication forces us to translate our scientific vocabulary into a public vocabulary while ensuring to keep accurate and logical thought constructs. I find this process very beneficial.

What challenges did you face in this project?

The biggest challenge is the oversimplification that is required while at the same time avoiding scientific inaccuracies. This is very tricky because it’s almost inevitable that as you oversimplify you leave out parameters that are quite important. For me this is the biggest challenge always when talking to the general public about the science we do.

And, the challenges are not specific to the young age group. We often find that even when we are trying to put out a press release from our laboratory there are problems. They are almost inbuilt. During the process of bringing or communicating science to society – to school children, general public or even Ministers – you need to be very careful and quite skilled as a scientist as well as communicator and educator.

In some ways it is easier with nanotechnology because many of its applications are directly relevant to the public. In this sense, nanotechnology is very different to disciplines like theoretical quantum mechanics that is quite abstract and much harder to demonstrate everyday relevance (even though equally - if not more - valuable). As nano-scientists in biomedicine, we have specific and quite obvious objectives such as eradicating lung nodules (a cluster of lung cancer cells) which will make sense to most people.

In a gaming environment this allowed us to present this particular case of using nanotechnology and lung cancer like a Hollywood movie in terms of 'bad' and 'good' guys. Although conceptually there is an oversimplification required – in reality it’s not as simple as 'good' versus 'bad' because lung cancer cells are still your cells. Nevertheless, nanotechnology is perhaps a science which readily lends itself to public presentation.

What is the future role for gaming in science?

I love the idea of gaming not just for children but for adults too. It would be great to introduce a lecture in a conference by playing a game. It engages everybody because it’s dynamic, unusual and interactive, and it gives you a visual idea of what we’re doing which is far more engaging than a PowerPoint presentation. If I try to write about nanotechnology scientifically, it’s likely very few people will understand what we’re doing – most people will give up after a couple of sentences. But if I try to express what I’m doing in a gaming environment I’m sure people will stay engaged for longer.

I think the return on investment for serious science games will be extremely and immediately positive from a governmental perspective and I would like to see more projects developed which bring game developers and scientists together. I see a big future in scientific gaming if it is properly applied and I can see a lot of reasons why governments and charities should invest in this - given the amount of time our children spend every day shooting and killing 'bad' guys on their consoles. Why not explore the nano-world or perform surgery instead?


Sciencewise-ERC is currently exploring the potential for using games to inform policy-making as well as an educational or communication tool, and hope to be running a public dialogue with young people, based on a serious game which will enable them to explore various possible futures. For more information on the programme visit www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk