News Releases 

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The Texas A&M University System has granted an exclusive license to a Maryland company to commercialize Pulse!! The Virtual Clinical Learning Lab, a game-based software platform for medical education conceived, researched and produced at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.

BreakAway Ltd. of Hunt Valley, Md., a leading developer of game-based technology solutions for training, experimentation and decision-making analysis, has entered into an agreement to license the Pulse!! technology for the purposes of further developing and marketing new commercial applications for wider use to meet the demands to better teach and train medical professionals.

BreakAway was hired in 2005 by Dr. Claudia L. McDonald, Associate Vice President for Special Projects at A&M-Corpus Christi, to produce the Pulse!! technology for a research initiative exploring whether videogame-based virtual-world technologies can reliably deliver sophisticated, curriculum-based medical education.

Pulse!! is currently being tested at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn.; The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Md.; the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.; and the Tufts School of Medicine in Boston, Mass.

A&M-Corpus Christi President Flavius Killebrew said the BreakAway agreement is a glowing example of how investing in higher education reaps benefits for the university’s wider community.

“Agreements like this benefit not only the system, the university and BreakAway, but they also have ripple effects throughout the local economy,” Killebrew said. “Pulse!! is making a profound contribution to medical education and also to the economic well-being of this entire region.”

The BreakAway agreement is “a giant step for Pulse!!,” said McDonald, who oversees the international project-development team of medical subject-matter experts, learning researchers and virtual-world technology specialists. “We’ve moved well beyond theory to the implementation of this technological advance in medical education and simulation.

“Pulse!! has commercial value, as demonstrated by BreakAway’s desire to market and further develop the learning platform technology for a variety of commercial applications,” McDonald said. “Our research is showing that Pulse!! has true educational value, and commercialization of this technology will enhance the project’s economic impact in Corpus Christi.”

Pulse!! so far has received more than $12 million in federal funding through the Office of Naval Research, with strong congressional support from U.S. Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi. McDonald said most of the federal money has flowed into the Corpus Christi economy.

“Our production studio is on campus,” she said. “We’ve created high-paying jobs in Corpus Christi for some highly-qualified people, and we want to see that grow into an arm of the virtual-technologies and simulation industry.”

Ortiz said Pulse!! “helps prepare military and civilian health-care professionals for the inner space of human medicine with an exciting new technology. This new venture with BreakAway Ltd. will continue to solidify Pulse!! as a groundbreaking science with countless applications,” Ortiz said. “I am proud to continue my support for Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on all their efforts and research.”

BreakAway CEO Doug Whatley said, “Through our collaboration with A&M-Corpus Christi to develop a platform solution for teaching and training medical professionals, we realize the urgent need for medical organizations to augment their traditional training methods with game-based technology such as Pulse!!. We are honored to be able to use Pulse!! technology as the starting point for delivering these virtual training grounds to supplement medical training using a simulated 3-D world that replicates the actual physical and emotional environment that medical professionals face whether it’s in a hospital, clinic or on the battlefield.”

For more information, contact claudia.mcdonald@tamucc.edu or go to the Pulse!! Web site (www.sp.tamucc.edu/pulse/); and pmauritz@breakawayltd.com, the company Web site (www.breakawayltd.com). Or visit the BreakAway booth at the Games for Health Conference Friday and Saturday, May 8-9, at the Baltimore (Md.) Convention Center.