UCalgary alum’s app earns recognition from Apple

A University of Calgary alum’s app has received recognition from Apple.

CellWalk, developed by Tim Davison, was a finalist in the Visuals and Graphics category for the 2025 Apple Design Awards. 

“CellWalk is an app for learning biology,” explains Davison, BSc’07, MSc’12, PhD’19. “It helps students by augmenting static learning resources such as videos and textbooks with interactive, immersive and spatial learning experiences.”

Davison says the app distills real scientific data into lessons and tours that are approachable. As well as using real science, Davison and his team have developed an algorithm, like Google Earth, for cell biology, allowing users to zoom from a whole cell down to its individual atoms.

Inspiration from watercolour illustrations of cells

Davison’s inspiration from the app came during his doctoral student research with Dr. Christian Jacob, PhD, a professor in the Department of Computer Science in the Faculty of Science. 

Jacob gave Davison a book called The Machinery of Life by David Goodsell.

The book contains watercolour illustrations of what the inside of a cell would look like. They remain state-of-the-art illustrations because Goodsell meticulously wove together evidence from a wide range of research articles and high-resolution structures in the Protein Data Bank.

“Those paintings were amazing, I had no idea the cell looked like that at the atomic level,” says Davison. “That sent me on a mission for the next decade to try and bring that to students in the form of something interactive and immersive.”

Along the way, Davison was able to collaborate with scientists at Scripps Research, an innovative bioscience research institute in California, and David Goodsell to create a lesson about their Mycoplasma bacterial cell, a unique type of bacteria characterized by the absence of a cell wall.

“It was pretty special to meet and work with a personal hero and the scientist who inspired everything,” says Davison.

Apple recognition for app that connects many

The first version of the app is available on iPhone and iPad, while the second, which was announced for this year’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), is available on Apple Vision Pro. Both versions of the app currently have a perfect five-star rating on the Apple App Store.

Davison says the recognition from Apple was a moment that made him go, “Holy cow.”

“It’s very surreal to find out that our little app about cell biology had the attention of people inside of Apple and that something relatively niche, like cell biology, could connect with so many people,” he says.

Davison travelled to the 2025 WWDC in Cupertino, California, to attend the Apple Design Awards ceremony. 

Creating 3D human anatomy atlases for PhD thesis

Davison’s work combining computer science and biology for educational purposes stretches back to his undergraduate work at UCalgary.

He was a lead developer on the LINDSAY Virtual Human Project, which created 3D human anatomy atlases. His PhD thesis was LifeBrush, painting 3D molecular landscapes within an interactive virtual reality canvas.

“As a programmer with no biology background, it was a whole new world and new thing to discover and get deep into,” Davison says.

Up next for Davison is continuing to expand CellWalk as a platform for biology education.

“Right now, we just have a few lessons, but wouldn’t it be cool if we could make all of biology learning interactive and immersive? That’s our ambition,” he says.