Online Gamers May Help Create Anti-HIV Drug
As has happened in the past, avid and talented online gamers have been tapped to solve puzzles representing the toughest and most complex of diseases. This time around, the solutions to a molecular biology puzzle may lead to new drugs to fight HIV.
Gamers were called upon, and they did not fail to deliver, as they solved the puzzle and hopefully positive gains will be made. The structure that was created can be used in designed drugs, which includes those that could possibly be anti-HIV drugs.
Foldit, the website and game released by biochemist David Baker and his colleagues at the University of Washington a couple years ago, allows players to compete and work together to find ways to fold protein structures based on the laws of physics.
Apparently researchers have been trying to figure out the shape of the retroviral protease for 15 years, but Foldit players managed to solve the puzzle...
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