Online gamers crack AIDS enzyme puzzle

[feather]

A "folded up puzzle" from fold.it.


Online gamers have achieved a feat beyond the realm of Second Life or Dungeons and Dragons: they have deciphered the structure of an enzyme of an AIDS-like virus that had thwarted scientists for a decade.

The exploit was published on Sunday in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, where - exceptionally in scientific publishing - both gamers and researchers are honoured 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 3D picture that "unfolds" the molecule and rotates it in order to reveal potential targets for drugs.

This is where Foldit comes in.

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.

To the astonishment of the scientists, the gamers produced an accurate model of the enzyme in just three weeks.

Cracking the enzyme "provides new insights for the design of antiretroviral drugs", says the study, referring to the medication to keep people with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) alive.

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 in a press release.

"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."


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/g...#ixzz1YODYMqge

[Shpira]

Re: Online gamers crack AIDS enzyme puzzle

Thats fucking cool

[Illuminate]

Re: Online gamers crack AIDS enzyme puzzle

Wow that's wicked.

Nerds...

[feather]

Re: Online gamers crack AIDS enzyme puzzle

It's interesting because I read another article in which a game creator, don't remember his name, possibly the guy who created the Sims, commented on gaming as an educational tool: In his opinion, a gamer playing something like Call of Duty or any of the games deemed violent, do not so much as see the gore or violence, but see the game as a series of challenges, puzzles, trail-finding; and it is the bystanders, usually parents, who see the violence in the games.

And an older article on Wired talked about WoW and how it helps people to learn skills useful for management in the corporate world.