With the free computer game Foldit, you should help fight the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). Anyone can participate.
What is it about? The University of Washington has developed a free game that allows you to help in the creation of a medication against coronaviruses.
How to participate – Foldit Download
How can I get started? The game is called Foldit and can be downloaded from the official FreeThink website.
The Institute for Protein Design (IPD) at the University of Washington developed the game, where you solve puzzles. In doing so, you create protein structures that can interact with other proteins in a specific way.
How does it work? You download Foldit from the website (link to download on fold.it) and then register with a username and password. The file is only 166 MB in size.
When you start the game, you will first be guided through a few tutorials that explain how to solve the puzzles. In the advanced puzzle, you design a brand new protein from scratch.
The most promising designs are then tested at the IPD. If a correct combination is found, it will still take some time for it to undergo further testing.
What is behind it? The idea behind the game is to find a correct protein combination that can effectively protect cells from the attacking coronaviruses. Scientists can then use this to develop medicine against the virus to slow down or stop the spread.
However, this is a long way because “a modest protein with 100 amino acids has 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,0000 possible combinations,” explains the website.
No wonder that as many of you as possible should play Foldit to quickly find the right combination.
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