Solve Puzzles for Science | Foldit - 0 views
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Francesco Mureddu on 09 Apr 12Foldit was founded by the University of Washington Center for Game Science in collaboration with the Baker lab. In the last decade, scientists repeatedly failed to find a solution to the structure of a protein-cutting enzyme from an AIDS-like virus. The scientists have decided to collect a group of gamers and challenged them to produce an accurate model of the enzyme: users are tasked with folding known proteins and are scored on how well they manage to accomplish this task while taking into consideration the physical properties of the molecule. In less then ten days, the gamers came up with the desired solution.