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Katherine Celler, Roman I. Koning, Gilles P. van Wezel (Molecular Biotechnology, Institute of Biology, Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands; Electron Microscopy, Molecular Cell Biology, Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden, Netherlands)
WebGL is a new web technology which enables visualization of Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) hardware-accelerated 3D graphics on the browser without additional software, plug-ins or extensions. To date, development has focused mainly on the creation of interactive web experiments or games (for examples, visit www.chromeexperiments.com), but it is also increasingly being applied for scientific applications and educational purposes, such as the Biodigital Human project (https://www.biodigitalhuman.com/home/) or the Open Worm Browser (http://browser.openworm.org/). Drawing inspiration from these projects, I am working on creating an interactive, dynamic, Javascript-based, 3D biological model of Streptomyces bacterial pellet growth and morphological development. In my virtual model, a user will be able to influence pellet morphology and development by adjusting various parameters (such as oxygen concentration, growth rate or branching interval), and follow the 3D growth of a pellet over time. The in-browser modeling framework can be used as a tool to study the effect of morphology on natural product formation by these antibiotic- and enzyme-producing microorganisms.