Fig. 2

VMR increasing importance in academic and educational context. a Web of Science Topic query of publications (left) and citations (right) that involves VMR and education (orange) and VMR and biology (red). WoS searches were conducted on 12-May-2020 with search term queries ‘(virtual AND augmented) reality AND education’ or ‘(virtual AND augmented) reality AND biology’. For each search, reviews and proceedings of conferences were excluded. In total, there were 6443 and 133 papers that fitted the selection criteria, respectively. b Schematic overview of the potential for VMR to impact Biology. On one hand, VMR has increasingly been used for teaching of a variety of topics within Biology. As technology advances, it may be possible to combine other cutting-edge technologies such as Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligent to create a self-sustained evolving virtual world (BioVR) that allows us to gain insights into biological processes