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Online gamers crack AIDS enzyme puzzle

Totenkindly

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Now this kind of stuff rocks:

http://news.yahoo.com/online-gamers-crack-aids-enzyme-puzzle-175427367.html

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.

...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.

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...
 

Aquarelle

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I saw this, too! SO COOL! Human intuition triumphs where computers fail! Who says video games rot the brain???
 

Spamtar

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yeah. I knew playing video games would evolved to job skills/saving the world
 

Oaky

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Ah, nice nice. 'Twould be fantastic if they start implementing more gaming into the science researching process in the future.
 

Mal12345

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I saw this, too! SO COOL! Human intuition triumphs where computers fail! Who says video games rot the brain???

The gamers' brains did rot, but it was a worthy sacrifice.
 

rav3n

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Amazing and fantastic!

Nice to see that some of my son's time is well spent, not that he was one of the gamers that reproduced the model! :laugh:
 

Octarine

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Here is a gameplay intro on Youtube:
[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGYJyur4FUA"]Foldit[/YOUTUBE]

I think it requires a certain type of gamer...
 

giegs

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Sep 16, 2011
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That actually looks like something that would be a welcome distraction from work, but not a "game" for me. A few minutes here and there would be fine, but I couldn't imagine sitting down for any length of time trying to get a high score.
 

Patches

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I fucking loved fold.it. Haven't touched it in months, but I think it was someone on TypoC that introduced me to it. Hours and hours spent folding those little proteins.
 

Southern Kross

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This is crazy. :shock: Have you ever seen this TED talk about the potential of gamers to solve the world's problems. She talks about just this sort of thing:
[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE1DuBesGYM&feature=channel_video_title"]Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world[/YOUTUBE]
 
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