The coronavirus outbreak is currently dominating the headlines - but among the doom and gloom is something a little more hopeful, as researchers are hoping a video game could help find a solution to the spread of COVID-19.
Developed by the University of Washington and first released in 2008, Foldit is a free puzzle game where players try to fold the structures of proteins as perfectly as possible. It's similar in aim to other protein folding programmes you may have heard of, such as Folding@home by Stanford University that was available on PS3 - although that one asked for raw computing power. Overall, a pretty smart way to share the research workload with over 200,000 people, and a paper by Foldit's creators found the player base is equal to (or often better than) a computer in finding solutions.
In a recent update, Foldit added a new puzzle for players to solve: coronavirus, and researchers want players to design an antiviral protein to block the coronavirus spike protein from interacting with human cells. "Coronaviruses display a 'spike' protein on their surface, which binds tightly to a receptor protein found on the surface of human cells," explains the puzzle brief. "Once the coronavirus spike binds to the human receptor, the virus can infect the human cell and replicate. In recent weeks, researchers have determined the structure of the 2019 coronavirus spike protein and how it binds to human receptors. If we can design a protein that binds to this coronavirus spike protein, it could be used to block the interaction with human cells and halt infection!"