IPFS News Link • Science, Medicine and Technology
IPFS News Link • Science, Medicine and Technology
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 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 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."