An escape room uses a game-based active learning approach to develop students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills in an immersive environment. An escape room was developed to provide an innovative method to reinforce concepts in chemical bonding for a first-year general chemistry course. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was unsuitable to implement the escape room in a physical setting, as students need to interact in close proximity. To circumvent this problem, a fully digital escape room was developed using Google Forms, as it is cost-effective, accessible, and easy to use. Students’ feedback indicates that both escape rooms reinforce and motivate learning.

To develop novel neuroprotective agents, a library of novel arylalkenylpropargylamines was synthesized and tested for inhibitory activities against monoamine oxidases. From this, a number of highly potent and selective monoamine oxidase B inhibitors were identified. Selected compounds were also tested for neuroprotection in in vitro studies with PC-12 cells treated with 6-OHDA and rotenone, respectively. It was observed that some of the compounds tested yielded a marked increase in survival in PC-12 cells treated with the neurotoxins. This indicates that these propargylamines are able to confer protection against the effects of the toxins and may also be considered as novel disease-modifying anti-Parkinsonian agents, which are much needed for the therapy of Parkinson's disease.

An educational escape room uses a game-based active learning approach to develop students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills in an immersive environment. In this chapter, the authors conducted an evaluation of two physical and digital educational escape rooms that were previously developed to provide an innovative learning activity to reinforce concepts and/or address misconceptions in chemistry for general chemistry courses. The evaluation demonstrated that both educational escape rooms are highly effective as teaching tools. Students’ provided positive feedback, highlighting that the educational escape rooms reinforce and motivate learning. Hence, integrating educational escape rooms with conventional lessons can offer students a holistic and captivating learning experience.