In a gaming world saturated with online achievements, the most badass achievement has got to be “Helped Fight AIDS IRL”. How does one go about getting it? Simple: just unravel a complicated three-dimensional architecture of an AIDS-like virus that has eluded scientists for nearly a decade.
The game that made this real-life achievement possible, appropriately dubbed “Foldit“, relies on hundreds of users competitively folding protein strands to see who can make the most efficient shape. Then, these select few shapes are handed over to researchers for testing. Hence, scientists and gamers alike were listed as co-authors in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology for discovering the 3D structure of a monomeric protease enzyme called M-PMV.
Foldit is a game where you... fold.. it.
According to the publication, “Foldit players were able to generate models of sufficient quality for successful molecular replacement and subsequent structure determination. The refined structure provides new insights for the design of antiretroviral drugs.” Basically, pharmacologists will be able to engineer better drugs now that they have actual blueprints of their enemy.
Kudos to Foldit for creating such a high-quality tool and to Foldit’s gaming community for, you know, furthering the progress of humanity’s well-being. No big deal.
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