Fold It

PROJECT

Url:http://fold.it/portal/
Start date: 2008/05/08
End date: Still open

TEAM

Official team page:http://fold.it/portal/info/credits
Leader: David Baker



Main location: University of Washington

PROJECT DEFINITION

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Subject

Natural sciences > Biochemistry (medicine)

Description

Fold It is a computer game enabling volonteers to contribute to biochemistry research by resolving proteins puzzles. The game is part of an experimental research project, and is developed by the University of Washington's Center for Game Science in collaboration with the UW Department of Biochemistry.

Purpose.

Identify the structural configuration of natural proteins to study and understand proteins better.

Research question.

"As described above, knowing the structure of a protein is key to understanding how it works and to targeting it with drugs. A small protein can consist of 100 amino acids, while some human proteins can be huge (1000 amino acids). The number of different ways even a small protein can fold is astronomical because there are so many degrees of freedom." from official project website

ABOUT PARTICIPANT TASKS

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Grey typology	Participation typology	Contribution type:
Computing: NO Thinking: NO Sensing: NO Gaming: YES	Crowdsourcing ☑ Distributed intelligence ☐ Participatory science ☐ Extreme citizen science ☐ Science outreach ☐	Data collection ☐ Data analysis ☑ Data interpretation ☐--------
Gaming
Genre: puzzle	Gaming elements:
Interface
Data type to manipulate: 3D manipulation	interface enjoyment: cool/attractive Interface usability:	Member profiles::N/A Member profile elements:

ABOUT GUIDANCE AND FEEDBACK

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Guidance	Feedback on
Tutorial and documentation: SOMEWHAT Training sequence: SOMEWHAT Peer to peer guidance: SOMEWHAT	individual performance: Somewhat collective performance: Somewhat research progress: Somewhat

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COMMUNITY

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Tools	News & Events
Communication: website, blog, forum, wiki, other Social Network: Twitter, Facebook	Main news site: http://fold.it/portal/blog Frequency of project news updates: weekly Type of events: Frequency of events :
Community description
Community size (volounteers based): 6398 Role: Interaction form: Has official community manager(s): N/A Has team work N/A

Other information about community: Forum fairly active.
Community led additions:

OTHER PROJECT INFORMATION

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Foldit main.png Yes [[has completion level::Low]

http://fold.it/portal/info/credits

University of Washington

Yes Biochemistry Natural sciences medicine"medicine" is not in the list (nature/conservation, environment/climate, geography/urbanism, history/archeology, biology/medicine/neuroscience, physics, space, N/A, other) of allowed values for the "Has citizen science subject area" property. Identify the structural configuration of natural proteins to study and understand proteins better. "As described above, knowing the structure of a protein is key to understanding how it works and to targeting it with drugs. A small protein can consist of 100 amino acids, [[Has research question::while some human proteins can be huge (1000 amino acids). The number of different ways even a small protein can fold is astronomical because there are so many degrees of freedom." from official project website]]

Fold It

data analysis

crowdsourcing 3D manipulation, other: Thinking: no Computing: no Sensing: no Gaming: yes

puzzle

cool/attractive

N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

N/A

N/A website, blog, forum, wiki, other Twitter, Facebook

http://fold.it/portal/blog 6398 weekly Forum fairly active.

N/A

Low

BIBLIOGRAPHY