Online gamers have achieved a feat beyond the realm of Second Life or Dungeons and Dragons: they have deciphered the structure of an enzyme of an AIDS-like virus that had thwarted scientists for a decade.

The exploit is published on Sunday in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, where -- exceptionally in scientific publishing -- both gamers and researchers are honoured as co-authors.

Their target was a monomeric protease enzyme, a cutting agent in the complex molecular tailoring of retroviruses, a family that includes HIV.

Figuring out the structure of proteins is vital for understanding the causes of many diseases and developing drugs to block them.

But a microscope gives only a flat image of what to the outsider looks like a plate of one-dimensional scrunched-up spaghetti. Pharmacologists, though, need a 3-D picture that "unfolds" the molecule and rotates it in order to reveal potential targets for drugs.

This is where Foldit comes in.

Developed in 2008 by the University of Washington, it is a fun-for-purpose video game in which gamers, divided into competing groups, compete to unfold chains of amino acids -- the building blocks of proteins -- using a set of online tools.

To the astonishment of the scientists, the gamers produced an accurate model of the enzyme in just three weeks.

Cracking the enzyme "provides new insights for the design of antiretroviral drugs," says the study, referring to the lifeline medication against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

It is believed to be the first time that gamers have resolved a long-standing scientific problem.

"We wanted to see if human intuition could succeed where automated methods had failed," Firas Khatib of the university's biochemistry lab said in a press release. "The ingenuity of game players is a formidable force that, if properly directed, can be used to solve a wide range of scientific problems."

One of Foldit's creators, Seth Cooper, explained why gamers had succeeded where computers had failed.

"People have spatial reasoning skills, something computers are not yet good at," he said.

"Games provide a framework for bringing together the strengths of computers and humans. The results in this week's paper show that gaming, science and computation can be combined to make advances that were not possible before."

Slarg232 wrote:FETH YEAH!

Play Portal, solve physics problems!

notprop wrote:I saw the title and assumed that they had used some basement dwelling neckbeards as a control group for HIV incidence in the non-reproductive.

Close, same people, different experiment.

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:

notprop wrote:I saw the title and assumed that they had used some basement dwelling neckbeards as a control group for HIV incidence in the non-reproductive.

Close, same people, different experiment.

"Quick, we need someone who has had 0% chance of ever being exposed to HIV to study!"
"I'll get on Dakka now!"

Necroshea wrote:Not a big fan of how they mentioned second life, D&D, and gamers. Well that and how they grouped the three together, as if playing games means you play D&D and second life, and vice versa and all that (as a side note, I like D&D and gaming).

Anyways, yeah the article comes off to me as them saying that if you are a gamer you will never accomplish anything worth mentioning.

Still, interesting read.

WARORK93 wrote:

Necroshea wrote:Not a big fan of how they mentioned second life, D&D, and gamers. Well that and how they grouped the three together, as if playing games means you play D&D and second life, and vice versa and all that (as a side note, I like D&D and gaming).

Anyways, yeah the article comes off to me as them saying that if you are a gamer you will never accomplish anything worth mentioning.

Still, interesting read.

This confuses me...I get what you're saying about D&D and second life being in there but how does an article about gamers accomplishing something that scientist have been unable to for decades come off as "them saying that if you are a gamer you will never accomplish anything worth mentioning."

Melissia wrote:Second Life is a game. It's a simulation. It's a different kind of game than you're used to. But it is still a game.

Goddard wrote:Looks like it's time again to latch onto the success of others that share my interests.

Hell yes.