CDC Virtual Reality Laboratory Expands Access to Training on Biosafety and Preparedness

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) new Virtual Reality (VR) Laboratory gives access to free training in key areas of biosafety, specimen handling, and preparedness, available through its OneLab VR program. The VR environment includes 12 separate laboratory areas (with more than 100 custom-built pieces of laboratory equipment) in a 50,000-square-foot virtual facility designed for clinical and public health laboratory training.

Stop by the Workforce Lounge at the ASCP 2024 Annual Meeting, September 4-6 to check out daily live demonstrations of the CDC OneLab VR laboratory environment.

The VR program empowers laboratory professionals by providing them with a safe and controlled learning environment where they can apply, assess, and improve their laboratory skills. Learners can take on-demand VR training or use the multi-player, open format to deliver live training to learners and communicate with them from anywhere. The VR-based laboratory scenarios are freely available through OneLab REACH, and OneLab VR is designed for the Meta Quest 2 headset – download OneLab VR from the Meta Quest Store.

Of interest to ASCP members, CDC is also offering a limited number of free VR headsets to eligible clinical laboratories, academic laboratories, and medical laboratory science training programs in need through their OneLab VR-Ready Laboratories Program. VR-based laboratory education could be especially powerful in helping strengthen laboratory biosafety programs, expanding the interactivity and engagement in laboratory training or refresher trainings, or supporting training in clinical laboratories suffering from understaffing.

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