URL: fold.it/portal
So what is the site about?
Like the popular SETI@home program, which uses the downtime of home computers to sift radio-telescope data for evidence of alien life, Foldit draws on the idle hours of several thousand data-crunchers for help in solving scientific puzzles. But there is a twist. For a start, Foldit is all about biophysics. The project’s goal is to understand how proteins — the chains of amino acids that drive processes inside living cells — fold themselves into a myriad of different shapes. But the most striking difference is that Foldit’s protein-folding operators are actual human beings, and the datasets they are sifting are disguised as an amazingly addictive computer game.
Nice touch. What is it like to play?
The simple answer is that Foldit is a bit like Tetris, only infinitely more useful and without the annoying background music. On the screen, protein molecules appear as brightly coloured cartoon chains, with hydrophilic (water-loving) and hydrophobic (water-hating) sidechains dangling off them. A variety of tools allows you to poke, squeeze, tug and shake the proteins into more energetically favourable configurations. The more stable the protein becomes, the more your score increases. If your wiggles and tweaks succeed in improving the protein, then the game rewards you with encouraging little messages (“great hydrogen bonding!”); you also get the satisfaction of watching your solution creep up the scoreboard compared with other players’ efforts.
How do I get started?
Once you have downloaded the game from the website (it is free and available in Windows and Mac versions), the next step is to work through a series of tutorials that introduces you to the physics of protein-folding. For example, proteins tend to be surrounded by water, so hiding the hydrophobic sidechains away inside the rest of the molecule will reduce the amount of energy needed to maintain the protein’s shape. The tutorials also introduce advanced tools like “shake sidechains” that allow you to move several parts of the molecule simultaneously, and offer a few hints about techniques to try. Once you have solved the introductory puzzles, you can try more advanced ones, form groups to solve puzzles together, chat with other players, challenge them to duels and generally fold away to your heart’s content.
Are we really doing science here?
Well…sort of. Foldit grew out of Rosetta@home, a computerized protein-folding project led by David Baker of the University of Washington. Baker won the Sackler International Prize in Biophysics in November 2008 for his work, but by that time his team had already identified a problem: sometimes, Rosetta@home’s computers became bogged down in local minima, ignoring “obvious” lower-energy configurations nearby. Humans, in contrast, are famously good at spotting patterns, and many are inveterate puzzle-solvers. So Baker brought in some computer-scientist colleagues to develop a computer game around protein-folding, effectively outsourcing these puzzles to anyone with a computer and some free time. Eventually, the Foldit project members hope to get human players to tackle protein-folding problems that have no known solution. They are not there yet, however, and current research is focused instead on finding out what types of problems Foldit players can solve with ease, and which are better left to the machines.
Any new developments I should look out for?
New protein-folding problems appear on the site every few days, and in late May the Foldit team added an important new twist: a series of puzzles that allows players to design their own proteins, not just manipulate existing ones. Protein engineering is relatively uncharted territory for both humans and machines, and the team thinks that in this wide-open field, a casual gamer might be able to make a real contribution — perhaps even design a new protein-based drug. It may seem unlikely, but as an excuse for playing a computer game, finding a cure for HIV is tough to beat.
