For once, a news story about gamers contributing to something other than society’s downfall…
Players of the online game FoldIt earn points by trying to solve problems relating to various real life scientific problems relating to the structure of organic molecules. A protein or enzyme can be enormously complex.
A microscope can tell you what general shape it is in 2D terms, other scientific instruments and methods can work out the molecule’s chemical composition, but you still won’t know it really sits in a full 3D way, all the bends and curves. Which parts “stick out” and are easy for another molecule to latch on to or attack; which parts are sheltered.
This matters a lot if, for example, you’re studying a virus and you’re trying to build a molecule that can attack it. Where is the metaphorical 3-metre wide exhaust port on that Death Star, and what kind of photon torpedo will fit in there and blow it up?
So far, this sort of problem has resisted computer-based problem-solving. Computers haven’t quite got the hang of 3D spatial problem solving yet. Humans can make intuitive leaps of what looks right and what will never let the finished product fit with the known evidence, without sorting through billions of nonsensical combinations. Once a realistic solution is generated that fits all the criteria, it can be checked to determine everything is where it was predicted to be (or not).
FoldIt has already been the subject of one published scientific paper, and the creators say there are two more in the pipeline, but today’s result is quite extraordinary.
Mason-Pfizer monkey virus was in 1997 discovered to cause fatal immunodeficiency syndrome in rhesus monkeys (similar to AIDS in human) but it has never been successfully modelled…. until it was successfully modelled by FoldIt players and the result published in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. The opening of the journal paper reads:
“Following the failure of a wide range of attempts to solve the crystal structure of M-PMV retroviral protease by molecular replacement, we challenged players of the protein folding game Foldit to produce accurate models of the protein. Remarkably, Foldit players were able to generate models of sufficient quality for successful molecular replacement and subsequent structure determination. The refined structure provides new insights for the design of antiretroviral drugs.”
Clearly instead of studying biochemistry, we should have all played Tetris.
