Foldit

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Foldit

Screen shot of the Foldit application showing a folding puzzle in progress
Developed by	University of Washington Departments of Computer Science & Engineering and Biochemistry.
Initial release	2008
OS	Windows, Mac OS X
Size	53.03 MB
Available in	English
Development status	Active
Genre	Video game
License	Proprietary
Website	http://fold.it/

Foldit is an experimental video game about protein folding, developed as a collaboration between the University of Washington's departments of Computer Science and Engineering and Biochemistry. The first public beta was released in May 2008.

Foldit provides a series of tutorials in which the user manipulates simple protein-like structures, and a periodically updated set of puzzles based on real proteins. The application displays a graphical representation of the protein's structure which the user is able to manipulate with the aid of a set of tools. As the structure is modified, a "score" is calculated based on how well-folded the protein is, and a list of high scores for each puzzle is maintained.

The process by which living beings create the primary structure of proteins, protein biosynthesis, is reasonably well understood, as is the means by which proteins are encoded as DNA. Determining how the primary structure of a protein turns into a functioning three-dimensional structure – how the molecule "folds" – is more difficult; the general process is known, but predicting protein structures is computationally demanding.

Foldit is an attempt to apply the human brain's natural three-dimensional pattern matching abilities to this problem. Current puzzles are based on well-understood proteins; by analysing the ways in which humans intuitively approach these puzzles, researchers hope to improve the algorithms employed by existing protein-folding software.