PARIS —
Online gamers have achieved a feat beyond the realm of Second Life or Dungeons
and Dragons: they have deciphered the structure of an enzyme of an AIDS-like
virus that had thwarted scientists for a decade.
The exploit
is published on Sunday in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular
Biology, where -- exceptionally in scientific publishing -- both gamers and
researchers are honoured as co-authors.
Their
target was a monomeric protease enzyme, a cutting agent in the complex
molecular tailoring of retroviruses, a family that includes HIV.
Figuring
out the structure of proteins is vital for understanding the causes of many
diseases and developing drugs to block them.
But a
microscope gives only a flat image of what to the outsider looks like a plate
of one-dimensional scrunched-up spaghetti. Pharmacologists, though, need a 3-D
picture that "unfolds" the molecule and rotates it in order to reveal
potential targets for drugs.
This is
where Foldit comes in.
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."
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