Gamers help fight AIDS.

• Author: Suderman, Peter
• Position: Artifact - Brief article

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Peter Suderman

FOR MORE than 10 years, health researchers have been stumped by an enzyme that helps retroviral infections like AIDS reproduce. Biologists studying the enzyme were unable to model its shape, a crucial first step in figuring out how to beat it.

Recently scientists turned the problem over to an unusual team of collaborators: video garners. Using Foldit, a free online protein folding game developed at the University of Washington in 2008, those garners competed to see who could produce the most accurate virtual model of the real-life enzyme.

In just three weeks, garners accomplished what scientists had been unable to do for more than a decade--no special scientific understanding required. The game offers players an intuitive 3D modeling interface that can be learned in just a few minutes. It then awards a...