Abstract:

Toxicogenomics is a discipline of Toxicology that tries to determine the mechanisms of toxicity that mediate the harmful effect of toxic compounds through performing studies on the genes and proteins expression and tries to predict genetic susceptibility to them. To this aim, Toxicogenomics uses several technologies, like proteomics, metabolomics, and genomics transcriptomics. The design of primers, tool of genomic edition or 3D model, or toxicity genomic interaction are a part of the techniques that toxicology students should learn, being very useful to develop teaching tools for a visual understanding of these techniques.

The Bologna Declaration states the need for changes in the methodology of teaching, promoting as an alternative to lectures using new information and communication technologies (ICT). The use of ICT in education can easily develop key aspects of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), such as flexible and personalized learning, increasing the motivation of the students, and finally and perhaps, more importantly, the autonomy of the student, allowing an increase in the quality of teaching, which leads to an improvement in learning and the acquisition of digital skills.

Different studies on content retention and compression rates observed that students retain 10% of what they read, 30% of what they see, 50% of what they see and hear, 70% of what professors say or write, and 90% of what they do. Therefore, it is very important to implement new systems that increase student participation to establish long-term knowledge, encouraging them to design their own learning.

The use of simulated virtual environments with the use of avatars, not only produces an increase in the motivation and interactivity of the students both outside and inside the classes and facilitates access to early learning of the procedures of the practice of the profession, but also, it allows the development of integration competencies of the knowledge learned in various disciplines and demonstrates the acquisition of this competence in cases where they may be found in their work activity. All this is aimed at allowing students to apply and integrate in a practical way the theoretical knowledge acquired, which allows better incorporation into the work world of the student.

Accordingly, we propose that toxicology students develop toxicogenomic 3D models in the laboratory practical classes. This work leads to developing collaborative practical work that improves the retention of the knowledge learned. Moreover, the students should perform different projects in order to elucidate the possible mechanism of action of different toxic compounds employing these technics in simulated virtual environments and debates with the Professor and the classmates about their results. We expect that this methodology will improve their academic performance and result in more autonomy for toxicology students that will help them in their professional careers.

Keywords:

ICT, EHEA, Virtual reality, Toxicology, toxicogenomic.