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Predicting protein structures with a multiplayer online game

Author

Listed:
  • Seth Cooper

    (University of Washington, Box 352350, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA)

  • Firas Khatib

    (University of Washington, Box 357350, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA)

  • Adrien Treuille

    (University of Washington, Box 352350, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA
    School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, USA)

  • Janos Barbero

    (University of Washington, Box 352350, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA)

  • Jeehyung Lee

    (School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, USA)

  • Michael Beenen

    (University of Washington, Box 352350, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA)

  • Andrew Leaver-Fay

    (University of Washington, Box 357350, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA
    Present address: Department of Biochemistry, University of North Carolina, CB 7260, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA.)

  • David Baker

    (University of Washington, Box 357350, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA
    Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Washington, Box 357370, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA)

  • Zoran Popović

    (University of Washington, Box 352350, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA)

  • Foldit players

Abstract

Many hands make light work A natural polypeptide chain can fold into a native protein in microseconds, but predicting such stable three-dimensional structure from any given amino-acid sequence and first physical principles remains a formidable computational challenge. Aiming to recruit human visual and strategic powers to the task, Seth Cooper, David Baker and colleagues turned their 'Rosetta' structure-prediction algorithm into an online multiplayer game called Foldit, in which thousands of non-scientists competed and collaborated to produce a rich set of new algorithms and search strategies for protein structure refinement. The work shows that even computationally complex scientific problems can be effectively crowd-sourced using interactive multiplayer games.

Suggested Citation

  • Seth Cooper & Firas Khatib & Adrien Treuille & Janos Barbero & Jeehyung Lee & Michael Beenen & Andrew Leaver-Fay & David Baker & Zoran Popović & Foldit players, 2010. "Predicting protein structures with a multiplayer online game," Nature, Nature, vol. 466(7307), pages 756-760, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:466:y:2010:i:7307:d:10.1038_nature09304
    DOI: 10.1038/nature09304
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