Play against nature

The new online game EteRNA askes citizen scientists to fold biomolecules into target shapes. The users who find the most efficient folding paths are not just given points, but the crown of designing a self-assembling virtual RNA (Ribonucleic Acid) — something that could benefit the study of genetic disease immensely.

 

EteRNA is a new online game that uses humans to replace the work traditionally done by computer algorithms. Image courtesy EteRNA. Thumbnail image on front page courtesy Flavio Takemoto, stock.xchng

RNA is similar in its make-up to DNA, but instead of a double-strand that forms a double-helix, it is a single-strand capable of twisting in peculiar ways. RNA is fundamental to controlling living cells and unlocking its secrets, of folding into shapes, could help scientists develop more effective treatments for genetic diseases such as the HIV retrovirus, which are large RNAs coated with proteins.

Previously, the most sophisticated computer algorithms required complex calculations to perform even simple tasks when simulating RNA. So far, the virtual RNA they have created have been inefficient, making progress slow.

EteRNA’s crowd-sourcing game enables the mightiest of all biological computers, the human brain, to do the work instead. As well as being faster, the program also records the methods used to solve the problem.

The game also bridges the academic gap and allows the public to partake in scientific research, in a fun way. EteRNA’s developers at Carnegie Mellon University and Stanford University hope that players will be enriched and science will have a better understanding of biological nano-engineering as a result.

Jeehyung Lee, a computer science PhD student at Carnegie Mellon University said that EteRNA users are not only involved in design, but “also experimentation, analysis of results and incorporation of those results into future designs.”

Each week’s top designs are then forwarded to a laboratory so that they can be synthesized into molecules by actual scientists. Also, a player ranks higher among their peers if their designed RNA molecules fold themselves into a 3-D shape that is predicted by scientists’ computer models.

However, nature provides the final score.