Players of Online Games solve the Puzzles of The Enzyme AIDS
>> Thursday, September 22, 2011
Online players have achieved a feat beyond the area of Second Life and Dungeons and Dragons: they have deciphered the structure of an enzyme of the AIDS virus, as had frustrated scientists for a decade.
Exploits have been published on Sunday in the journal Nature Structural Funds & Molecular Biology, which - unusually in scientific publication - both players and researchers have the honor of co-authors.
Their goal was a monomeric protease, cutting agent in the tailoring of the molecular complex retroviruses, the family, which includes HIV.
Determining the structure of proteins is essential to understand the causes of many diseases and developing drugs to block them.
But the microscope to give a flat image of what looks like a scrunched-up external hard drive one-dimensional spaghetti. Pharmacologists, however, require a 3-D picture of the "reveal" the molecule and rotate it to reveal the potential drugs.
This is where Foldit
Developed in 2008 by the University of Washington, is a fun purpose, video game where players are divided into competing groups, compete in open chains of amino acids - building blocks of proteins - using a variety of online tools.
To scientists' surprise, the players produce an accurate model of the enzyme in only three weeks.
Cracking enzyme "offers new perspectives for the development of antiretroviral drugs," the study says, referring to the lifeline of drugs against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
Is considered the first time players have resolved a longstanding scientific problem.
"We wanted to see if human intuition could succeed where automated methods have failed," Firas Khatib of the biochemistry laboratory of the university said in a statement.
"The ingenuity of the players is a formidable force which, if done correctly, can be used to solve a wide range of scientific problems."
Foldit one of the creators, Seth Cooper, because players would be able, when computers had failed.
"People have the spatial reasoning skills, computers are still a good thing," he said.
"Games provide a framework to bring together the strengths of computers and humans. The results in the paper this week shows that the games, science and math can be combined to make the progress that it was not possible before ".
Exploits have been published on Sunday in the journal Nature Structural Funds & Molecular Biology, which - unusually in scientific publication - both players and researchers have the honor of co-authors.
Their goal was a monomeric protease, cutting agent in the tailoring of the molecular complex retroviruses, the family, which includes HIV.
Determining the structure of proteins is essential to understand the causes of many diseases and developing drugs to block them.
But the microscope to give a flat image of what looks like a scrunched-up external hard drive one-dimensional spaghetti. Pharmacologists, however, require a 3-D picture of the "reveal" the molecule and rotate it to reveal the potential drugs.
This is where Foldit
Developed in 2008 by the University of Washington, is a fun purpose, video game where players are divided into competing groups, compete in open chains of amino acids - building blocks of proteins - using a variety of online tools.
To scientists' surprise, the players produce an accurate model of the enzyme in only three weeks.
Cracking enzyme "offers new perspectives for the development of antiretroviral drugs," the study says, referring to the lifeline of drugs against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
Is considered the first time players have resolved a longstanding scientific problem.
"We wanted to see if human intuition could succeed where automated methods have failed," Firas Khatib of the biochemistry laboratory of the university said in a statement.
"The ingenuity of the players is a formidable force which, if done correctly, can be used to solve a wide range of scientific problems."
Foldit one of the creators, Seth Cooper, because players would be able, when computers had failed.
"People have the spatial reasoning skills, computers are still a good thing," he said.
"Games provide a framework to bring together the strengths of computers and humans. The results in the paper this week shows that the games, science and math can be combined to make the progress that it was not possible before ".
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