L337 pL4'/3rs make breakthrough HIV discovery

Society might not think much of computer gamers who they view as sitting in darkened basements playing games with online names like "L337 pL4'/3r." Now society may have to reconsider that image. In only three-week's time, computer gamers have cracked a medical mystery that has eluded scientists for a decade.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Scientists have spent millions of dollars and years researching the structure of an HIV-related enzyme. Gamers figured it out in three weeks. 

The feat is published in last Sunday's issue of the journal, Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, and gamers were credited alongside scientists for the remarkable accomplishment. The gamers were honored as co-authors. 

Their accomplishment was to decipher the structure of a monomeric protease enzyme, which is critical to the understanding of retroviruses, the family of which HIV is a member. Understanding the enzyme's structure means that new drugs can be developed to block those viruses from infecting cells. 

Scientists enlisted the help of gamers as they searched for a three-dimensional model of the enzyme. To accomplish this, they created a game called, "Foldit." The game was developed in 2008 at the University of Washington. The game, although designed to be fun, made gamers compete to virtually unfold chains of amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins, using a set of predefined online tools. The game resulted in an accurate model of the targeted enzyme in just three weeks. 

Now, there is new hope for the development of drugs to treat HIV.

Researchers believe this if the first time gamers have solved a real-world scientific problem. 

The medical profession isn't the only one using gamers to advance their research. Astronomers are enlisting gamers to find planets around distant stars and to solve some of the more complex mysteries of the universe that need a blend of computing power, and brains.

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