FAS To Present Immune Attack At Games for Health

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) announced that the organization will present the newest prototype of its educational game Immune Attack on Friday, September 29 at the upcoming Games for Health Conference at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. The presentation, titled "The Body is a Game," will take place at 10:00 a.m. EDT. According to FAS, Immune Attack is a first person strategy educational game jointly developed by FAS, Brown University and the University of Southern California. The game was created as an alternative means to teach complex biology and immunology topics to students in a manner different and more engaging than how the subjects are traditionally taught. Human body tissue structures serve as the playing field in the game, where immune cells face off against bacterial and viral infections. A teenaged prodigy with a unique immunodeficiency must teach his immune system how to function properl, or else die. Each subsequent level of Immune Attack features a different infection with a new type of immune cell for the player to train, and the player must scan and interact with various objects to train his immune system to fight off the invading pathogens. "Immunology is a complicated and difficult subject to learn, which is precisely why it makes such an interesting basis for a video game," said Eitan Glinert, FAS Project Coordinator of Immune Attack. "The challenges in Immune Attack give those who might not otherwise be interested in biology the chance to learn in a fun, hands-on manner they won't find in a text book."