Via Scoop.it - Online Communities and Social Networks

ONLINE gamers have achieved a feat beyond the realm of Second Life or Dungeons and Dragons: they have deciphered the structure of an enzyme of an AIDS-like virus that had thwarted scientists for a decade. Developed in 2008 by the University of Washington, it is a fun-for-purpose video game in which gamers, divided into competing groups, compete to unfold chains of amino acids - the building blocks of proteins - using a set of online tools. To the astonishment of the scientists, the gamers produced an accurate model of the enzyme in just three weeks.
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