Gamers discover protein structure that could help in war on HIV

The players of the online protein-folding game Foldit (which we’ve reported on before) outperformed scientists by discovering the structure of a protein involved in the Mason-Pfizer monkey virus (M-PMV). The M-PMV is a retrovirus, like HIV, that causes AIDS in monkeys and apes. Understanding its structure will help researchers develop antiretroviral drugs that can fight HIV—but this has been a mystery for over a decade.

Now, with the help of groups of (generally) non-scientist players and their pattern-recognition skills, scientists from the University of Washington have joined with groups including "Foldit Contenders Group" and "Foldit Void Crushers Group" to model the crystal structure of the M-PMV retroviral protease (PR), a protein responsible for viral growth.

What exactly is protein folding, and how are gamers doing it? Our earlier article on Foldit does a great job explaining both, but I’ll briefly summarize here.

Proteins consist of long chains of amino acids, molecules made up of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. Figuring out the order of the amino acids is easy, but that's only part of the story—the amino acid chain folds into complex shapes that determine the function of the protein. Due to the incredibly high number of degrees of freedom, understanding this structure is one of the hardest problems in modern science. A lot of research has focused on designing programs dedicated to solving this problem, which is mainly an energy minimization task (the correct shape is the most stable, the one with the lowest energy).

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/09/gamers-discover-protein-structure-relevant-to-hiv-drugs.ars

proven wrong again.

the use of varied skillsets attacking the same problem. Reminds me of the emergent, skillset-boundary-breaking process of the chaos sciences depicted in the book "Chaos: Making a new Science". Wonderful to see brilliant people from different areas making progress! Strength in difference.