While online gaming has been gaining popularity over the last decade, most people would never expect the past time to actually serve a medical purpose. Technology has certainly helped our understanding of certain diseases. Technology has also helped us find a way to better treat those diseases that are still stymieing us when it comes to a cure. Online gaming was probably never expected to help us in the way the program Foldit has managed.
While some gamers simply play in order to see if they can win themselves a lusty wench, or that powerful new sword, Foldit players are working to unfold the enzymes in certain viruses. In particular, Foldit users have recently deciphered the enzyme in an AIDS like virus that has had the top men in the medical field baffled for years. Taking apart the monomeric protease enzyme is no small feat. In order to actually battle these kinds of diseases, scientists first have to know what the enzymes look like front and back.
Scientists run into a problem because when looking at the virus through a microscope they are only seeing one dimension of the enzyme. With Foldit, gamers compete in different teams in order to put together a 3D model of the virus. What it has taken scientists at the top of their field more than a decade to do, Foldit gamers managed to do in a matter of weeks. With the cracking of the enzyme, the medical journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology says that the gamers have provided “new insights for the design of antiretroviral drugs.”
Foldit users may have set a new standard that gamers will be attempting to live up to four years to come. It should be pointed out that what was accomplished in regards to this virus is certainly not the norm. This particular instance is believed to be the first time that gamers have solved a complex scientific question. Foldit co-creator Seth Cooper says this is exactly why Foldit exists and that they are buoyed by the breakthrough. He also explained why users were able to succeed where computers have 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.”
Edited by
Jennifer Russell
