ACM TechNews
Computer Game's High Score Could Earn the Nobel Prize in Medicine
University of Washington News and Information (05/08/08) Hickey, Hannah
University of Washington (UW) researchers are trying to harness the skills
developed by video gamers to make medical discoveries by playing a game.
The game, called Foldit, turns protein folding into a competitive event.
Introductory levels teach the rules, which are the same laws of physics
that define which protein strands curl and twist into 3D shapes. While the
program is designed as a game, it is actually important medical research
that could lead to vaccines and a better understanding of diseases such as
Alzheimer's and HIV. The game was developed by computer science doctoral
student Seth Cooper and postdoctoral researcher Adrien Treuille, working
with UW professors Zoran Popovic, David Salesin, and David Baker. There
are more than 100,000 different kinds of proteins in the human body, and
the genetic sequence of many proteins are known, but it is unknown how they
fold up into complex shapes whose structures have biological functions.
Computer simulators can calculate all possible protein shapes, but the size
of the mathematical problem would take all of the computers in the world
centuries to solve. Baker says that people using their natural intuition
may be able to find the right answer far more quickly than computers. The
intuitive skills that make someone good at playing Foldit are different
from the ones that make top biologists or computer scientists, and Baker
says his 13-year-old son is better at folding proteins than he is, and
others may be even faster. Eventually the researchers hope to present
players with a disease and challenge them to devise a protein with the
right shape to lock onto the virus and deactivate it.
http://uwnews.washington.edu/ni/article.asp?articleID=41558
© Copyright 2008 Information, Inc. This service may be reproduced for internal distribution.