For more than 10 years, health researchers have been stumped by
an enzyme that helps retroviral infections like AIDS reproduce.
Biologists studying the enzyme were unable to model its shape, a
crucial first step in figuring out how to beat it.
Recently scientists turned the problem over to an unusual team
of collaborators: video gamers. Using Foldit, a free online protein
folding game developed at the University of Washington in 2008,
those gamers competed to see who could produce the most accurate
virtual model of the real-life enzyme.
In just three weeks, gamers accomplished what scientists had
been unable to do for more than a decade—no special scientific
under- standing required. The game offers players an intuitive 3D
modeling interface that can be learned in just a few minutes. It
then awards a score for each model; a higher score means a virtual
virus that more closely fits the known requirements for the
enzyme.
For gamers, it’s a milestone. “This is the first instance that
we are aware of in which online gamers solved a longstanding
scientific problem,” according to an article published online by
Nature Structural & Molecular Biology in September.
But it won’t be the last. The game goes on, and according to
Foldit’s blog, more scientific revelations are already on the
way.
Peter
Suderman is an associate editor at
reason.
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