Achievement Unlocked: AIDS Research Breakthrough [Community Highlight]

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Article by: Vercingetorix

In order to gain an appreciation for man's struggle to keep up with nature in the name of survival, one needn't look further than the never-ending drive for medical innovation. While there's no question that we've come quite far during the last few millennia (having the ability to live beyond 40 is certainly a plus), nature, being the recalcitrant angel that she is, largely remains a mystery.

One such mystery which has served as a particularly large and persistent headache to AIDS researchers for quite some time has just recently been solved: the structure of M-PMV retroviral protease. A team of people have solved in a matter of ten days what scores of scientists have been unable to determine for over a decade.

But the plot thickens -- barely an eighth of the people involved even had a career in science, and two-thirds of the most significant contributors didn't even have biochemistry experience beyond high school. What unifying characteristic defined an otherwise motley group of would-be structural biologists?

You guessed it: They were gamers. The structure of that particularly troublesome protease, the revelation of which has now opened new avenues for AIDS research, was determined by people who played an online game called Foldit.

Foldit is the product of a collaboration between University of Washington computer scientists and biochemists as a way of outsourcing current problems in protein structure via the establishment of a grid computing network (similar to the World Community Grid, discussed Here). However, Foldit is a fully-functioning video game. As one can see from the team that determined the protease's structure, a scientific background is not required -- it is essentially a puzzle game that happens to involve the manipulation of proteins; the only prerequisite is a willingness to test one's spatial perception skills. A global leaderboard is maintained for high scores, and teams may also be formed (with corresponding team leaderboards). I've just recently downloaded and installed the program, and I must say that the tutorials do a good job of walking one through the game's (already quite intuitive) mechanics. For those of you who don't want to hear about "alpha carbons" and "beta sheets," there's no need to worry -- jargon is kept to a bare minimum.

Most importantly, data gathered through users' manipulation of the puzzles serves a very real contribution to scientific research. The structure of the M-PMV protease has already been published by a high-impact journal. By combining existing structure prediction software and gamers' puzzle-solving skills, there is real potential for even more discoveries (no Nobel Prizes yet, but who knows?). Plus, it's a great opportunity to show 4PP's science side.

Source: Foldit

Source: CNET Article