The Pirelli Prize won by The Virtual Cell website , which was developed by Jim Rusconi, a high school teacher who participated in the STC 3D graphics summer workshops held at Brown in 1995 and 1996. He then went on to mentor students who have since, under his direction, created much of the graphics material on the website. The awards ceremony was held in Italy and was attended by the Italian Prime Minister and the President of Pirelli Corporation International as well as the British Ambassador to Italy. It was televised and will receive significant Media Coverage in Italy. Students can use the site to explore cells, and the small structures within them, such as mitochondria.
Users can zoom in and virtually cut open different membranes to further investigate the cells.
The site has been translated into Russian, French and Spanish. A number of universities use the site as a reference for general biology classes and it has been listed as a resource in New Scientist, and a McGraw-Hill microbiology textbook, Rusconi said. Current Projects Current projects range from desktop 3D tools to fully immersive virtual reality environments. Public 3D Widgets Library Funded by NASA for the past five years, the Brown site of the NSF Graphics and Visualization Center has developed 3D user interfaces for desktop and immersive scientific visualization applications.