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Gamer+Science=Cure to AIDS

http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/online-gamers-crack-aids-enzyme-puzzle-161920724.html

Everyday in high school and now even more in college, gamers face a tradeoff between how much time they spent on school work and their “time-wasting” hobby. After years of playing different genre of games including MMO, MMORPG, FPS, and TPS…etc. society labels gamers as unproductive, lazy, nerds because they spend so much time emulsifying themselves in their genre that it’s almost like a real profession (and game testers/reviewers do exist as real paid professions). With the evolution of games and innovation of different genre that are constantly being each day, the world of games becomes more and more complicated. To be able to master them all would take a considerable amount of time, but to some it’s worthwhile to achieve. After spending a considerable amount of time in an MMORPG, one could take another game in the same genre with ease because one has gained the intuition needed to cruise through the levels and storyline and the quests in the virtual world as rapidly as possible. It’s these intuitions and the drive to achieve that ultimate ending that makes gamers a true gamer. Until recently, these intuitions are not fully utilized because many did not see real life application. More recently, the US military (America’s Army-virtual simulation of combat) and other organization have been recruiting people based on these intuitions because they (believe it or not) saw real life application and potential for people with gamers’ intelligence.

AIDS has always been a problem around the world. AIDS is now associated with a life of unfortunate misery and suffering. It’s been a couple of decades since the first effort to “cure” AIDS, but people have only made progress in slowing the progression of the virus, and never fully stop it mainly because we don’t fully understand its structure. Even after its initial research, people have not even figured out the AIDS enzyme that people abhor hearing about. Recently, in a matter of 3 weeks, gamers (yes, not scientific computers or researchers) cracked open the mystery and “produced an accurate model of the enzyme.” Using a video game called Foldit, a game where you compete to unfold chains of amino acids using online tools provided. Through the trials provided in a video game environment, gamers harness the proper intuition to think outside of the box and to adapt to some of the most illogical situations. With proper direction, gamers’ human intuition could be used to unlock the stagnation of many other scientific problems.

This success in cooperation could potentially lead to more connections. If we take the scientific community as a component and the gamer community as a component (there may be overlap but the profession is relatively separate). With success in discovery in AIDS enzyme model (because it’s AIDS it was given a lot of attention), more path and edges will be realized among the two communities, where weak ties may become strong ties because of the increase in interaction among the two previously because of triadic closure property among interactions. This piece of news is essentially like a local bridge between the two communities, and a start of new partnership that may lead to discoveries that can be only realized with gamers’ intuition.

Comments

One Response to “ Gamer+Science=Cure to AIDS ”

  • David

    Cool post! I worked in David Baker’s lab this summer… they don’t limit Foldit only to gaming, but also use it for actual protein engineering projects.

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