Online gamers triumph where scientists were stumped

Oregon Live reports that The University of Washington had made a discovery that could lead to big scientific advances, and it's all thanks to gamers. Teams assembled to play the downloadable game Foldit, where higher scores were awarded to teams with the most accurate model of a protease, which is a key protein retrovirals like HIV need to multiply.

Using a rough draft idea of the shape of the protease of a retrovirus that causes HIV in monkeys, UW researchers laid the problem before Foldit players. In 10 days, the winners had constructed a near-perfect model - a feat researchers hadn't pulled off after over a decade of work.

Screenshot via University of Washington

The discovery will help make better anti-viral drugs in the future. It is also a big step for "citizen science," a growing field that enlists non-scientists' help, as opposed to a computer's, in solving complex problems. The main reason this works is due to the intuition a human mind has and how it sees potential in moves that initially seem like bad ideas.

"Human players can see that you may have to go down this road not doing well for a long time but those steps are necessary if you want to get a more correct solution," says postdoctoral researcher Firas Khatib. "Even the best computers and computer algorithms aren't very good at that."

The winning Foldit players were offered co-authorship of the results, but all declined, asking only for recognition for their teams, the Foldit Contenders Group and the Foldit Void Crushers Group. Team members were able to work on individual solutions as well as shared versions. They can also easily communicate to verbally to teammates, which helps collaboration a great deal.

Foldit has existed for about three years, but the protease issue was only brought to it recently. One member of the Contenders Group, who wished only to be named by her screen name "mimi," has been playing for years.

"We were all very excited to hear that we had helped to find the answer to this [problem]," she said, "especially since it had been outstanding so long and other methods had  been unsuccessful. The feeling of having done something that could make a significant contribution to research in this field is very special and unexpected. Foldit players have achieved a number of successes so far, and I hope we will go on to make many more."