Foldit Game Adds New COVID-19 Inspired Challenge

COVID-19 rapid spread, mortality rate and lack of a cure have caused major global panic and health concerns. As countries rush to contain the virus and scientists try to find a cure, researchers at the University of Washington (UW) Seattle are attempting to crowdsource a cure for the virus using a video game called Foldit.

Foldit is a gametizes the fundamental concepts of protein structures, making complicated processes of binding, unraveling, and so on easy for anyone to pick up. Foldit users can take protein structures and try to solve for various questions surrounding said protein.

According to a report by Kotaku, the UW researchers added a new protein puzzle into the game based on COVID-19’s particular molecular makeup. For those who want to try this puzzle, you can download it here.

To be clear, Foldit is not new. Since Foldit’s release in 2008, players have provided crucial information to researchers about how to tackle real scientific challenges. For example, player were able to decipher the structure of Mason-Pfizer monkey virus, a virus that causes HIV/AIDS-like symptoms in monkeys, and redesigned an enzyme catalyzing a widely used reaction.

Given Foldit’s success in the past, there is hope that something positive can come out of the inclusion of a COVID-19 puzzle on the game.

For more information on COVID-19, please see the CDC website.