Foldit: One game about aspects of proteins gives you the ability to play and scientists to research much faster coronavirus.
Foldit, as the game is called, has a puzzle specifically dedicated to COVID-19.
Foldit developers this week released a new puzzle called "Coronavirus Spike Protein Binder Design", which allows users to try to create an antiviral protein that will neutralize the coronavirus protein.
According to the description of the puzzle:
Coronaviruses display a "thorny" protein that binds tightly to a receptor protein found on the surface of human cells. Once the coronavirus protein strands bind to the human receptor, the virus can infect the human cell and replicate… If we can design a protein that binds to this coronavirus protein, we could use it to prevent of the virus with human cells and stop the infection.
Foldit was created by researchers at the University of Washington to use player tireless coercion to solve problems that aid scientific innovation.
In Foldit, the player folds the protein structures to create new ones, enhancing their understanding of the different protein chains. Or, as Foldit reports:
"The more we know about how certain proteins fold, the better new proteins we can design to fight disease-related proteins and cure disease."
In accordance with Game Science Center The University of Washington, which launched the game in 2008, was designed to "cure cancer, AIDS and many diseases."
There are two different levels of difficulty in the puzzle. In the easier of the two, players fold an existing coronavirus binding protein. In the most difficult, they design the protein from scratch.
The most promising solutions players will discover will be tested at the University of Washington's Institute of Protein Design. Foldit has over 200.000 players right now, so it would be interesting to see what they can discover.
Foldit, in addition to involving more staff, also uses "unused computing resources" for research effort. More data could lead to a vaccine.
If you are interested in trying out the game, you can find it on the Foldit website. You will need to download the game. Don't worry, it's virus-free too free.
