So, mum, when you told me that I should grow up and make a difference to the world by being a scientist, I can now honestly say that I would make more difference as a gamer! I think that every teenage boy has now got the conclusive proof that being a massive gamer is a more productive way to better the world. By now I am sure a large majority are thinking what is he going on about? Ok, with the help of Gizmodo, I shall explain!
Foldit, an online video game that attracts the kind of gamer that cares more about the folding patterns of biological proteins than their kill-death ratio on COD is to blame here. Basically Foldit revolves around the 240,000 registered members being fed a puzzle and the member that creates the most efficient protein gets the highest score. Well that's the basics of it anyway. The game developed by Zoran Popovic and David Baker returned around 180,000 results or designs that the scientists sifted through. Picking out the 'best' ones and putting them to the test in the lab. And the results of this left Baker stumped:
I worked for two years to make these enzymes better and I couldn't do it. Foldit players were able to make a large jump in structural space and I still don't fully understand how they did it.
This new crowd-sourced design is 18x more efficient that its original version. Now, unfortunately the enzyme has no real use, but the concept still stands! The members of Foldit are being fed the protein that blocks the flu virus, and their designs for this could actually result in a drug!
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