Online gamers have deciphered the structure of an enzyme of an AIDS-like virus that had thwarted scientists for a decade. The exploit was published in the journal, Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, where - exceptionally in scientific publishing - both gamers and researchers are honored as co-authors.
Their target was a monomeric protease enzyme, a cutting agent in the complex molecular tailoring of retroviruses, a family that includes HIV. Figuring out the structure of proteins is vital for understanding the causes of many diseases and developing drugs to block them. But a microscope gives only a flat image of what to the outsider looks like a plate of one-dimensional scrunched-up spaghetti. Pharmacologists, though, need a 3-D picture that “unfolds” the molecule and rotates it in order to reveal potential targets for drugs.
Foldit was developed in 2008 by the University of Washington. It is a fun-for-purpose video game in which gamers divided into competing groups compete to unfold chains of amino acids - the building blocks of proteins - using a set of online tools. The department called upon Foldit gamers, users of the game that UW's Center for Game Science actually created in 2007 to allow non-scientists to contribute their 3-D spatial abilities and intuition to solving a variety of yet-unsolved scientific stumbling blocks. The Foldit gamers, starting with no more than a flat image of the molecule, created a model within a few weeks that the UW biochemistry lab was able to tweak into a usable model for targeting drugs.
Cracking the enzyme “provides new insights for the design of antiretroviral drugs”, says the study, referring to the lifeline medication against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
It is believed to be the first time that gamers have resolved a long-standing scientific problem. “We wanted to see if human intuition could succeed where automated methods had failed,” Firas Khatib of the university's biochemistry lab said. “The ingenuity of game players is a formidable force that, if properly directed, can be used to solve a wide range of scientific problems.”
One of Foldit's creators, Seth Cooper, explained why gamers had succeeded where computers had failed. “People have spatial reasoning skills, something computers are not yet good at,” he said. “Games provide a framework for bringing together the strengths of computers and humans. The results in this week's paper show that gaming, science and computation can be combined to make advances that were not possible before.”
UW professors are anxious to develop Foldit as a teaching method for science classes in school systems. Not only will the game make science more fun for students, but it is sure to sharpen many skills that can be applied to other realms of knowledge too.
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