Microbial Puppet Masters

Client: The University of Salford

Microbial Puppet Masters is a VR app that's part of a wider project, aiming to make Science more accessible and fun through immersive creative installations and artworks. The experience was shown as part of the prestigious Summer Science Exhibition at the Royal Society in London, 2022.

It's made to explore, in 3D and through the unique scaling possibilities of Virtual Reality, some of the important research done between Salford University and Liverpool University on Bacteriophages (phages) - viruses that infect bacteria. They are the most abundant and diverse organisms on Earth, and their actions underlie the fundamental biology of our planet.

The VR experience, made in partnership with the artist, Paul Miller, puts the audience inside the lungs of a Cystic Fibrosis patient and explores bacterial events at the microscopic level.