Publication Date:
2010-08-06
Description:
People exert large amounts of problem-solving effort playing computer games. Simple image- and text-recognition tasks have been successfully 'crowd-sourced' through games, but it is not clear if more complex scientific problems can be solved with human-directed computing. Protein structure prediction is one such problem: locating the biologically relevant native conformation of a protein is a formidable computational challenge given the very large size of the search space. Here we describe Foldit, a multiplayer online game that engages non-scientists in solving hard prediction problems. Foldit players interact with protein structures using direct manipulation tools and user-friendly versions of algorithms from the Rosetta structure prediction methodology, while they compete and collaborate to optimize the computed energy. We show that top-ranked Foldit players excel at solving challenging structure refinement problems in which substantial backbone rearrangements are necessary to achieve the burial of hydrophobic residues. Players working collaboratively develop a rich assortment of new strategies and algorithms; unlike computational approaches, they explore not only the conformational space but also the space of possible search strategies. The integration of human visual problem-solving and strategy development capabilities with traditional computational algorithms through interactive multiplayer games is a powerful new approach to solving computationally-limited scientific problems.〈br /〉〈br /〉〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2956414/" target="_blank"〉〈img src="https://static.pubmed.gov/portal/portal3rc.fcgi/4089621/img/3977009" border="0"〉〈/a〉 〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2956414/" target="_blank"〉This paper as free author manuscript - peer-reviewed and accepted for publication〈/a〉〈br /〉〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Cooper, Seth -- Khatib, Firas -- Treuille, Adrien -- Barbero, Janos -- Lee, Jeehyung -- Beenen, Michael -- Leaver-Fay, Andrew -- Baker, David -- Popovic, Zoran -- Players, Foldit -- Howard Hughes Medical Institute/ -- England -- Nature. 2010 Aug 5;466(7307):756-60. doi: 10.1038/nature09304.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington, Box 352350, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20686574" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Algorithms
;
Computational Biology/*methods
;
Computer Graphics
;
Computer Simulation
;
Cooperative Behavior
;
Cues
;
*Games, Experimental
;
*Group Processes
;
Humans
;
Hydrogen Bonding
;
Hydrophobic and Hydrophilic Interactions
;
Imaging, Three-Dimensional
;
*Internet
;
Leisure Activities
;
Models, Molecular
;
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Biomolecular
;
Photic Stimulation
;
*Problem Solving
;
Protein Conformation
;
*Protein Folding
;
Proteins/*chemistry/metabolism
;
Stochastic Processes
;
Thermodynamics
Print ISSN:
0028-0836
Electronic ISSN:
1476-4687
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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