This 3D puzzle game, available on Windows, OSX, and Linux, is designed to collect data on human natural 3-D pattern matching abilities to help improve algorithms solving the protein folding problem. The research may even help cure diseases in the future.
Understand how proteins are folded can help predict what a protein shape will do, and help recognize the function of a protein or even help design one.
Proteins come in thousands of different varieties, but they all have a lot in common. For instance, they’re made of the same stuff: every protein consists of a long chain of joined-together amino acids.
To make a protein, the amino acids are joined in an unbranched chain, like a line of people holding hands.
Even though proteins are just a long chain of amino acids, they don’t like to stay stretched out in a straight line. The protein folds up to make a compact blob, but as it does, it keeps some amino acids near the center of the blob, and others outside; and it keeps some pairs of amino acids close together and others far apart. Every kind of protein folds up into a very specific shape – the same shape every time.
For example, a protein that breaks down glucose so the cell can use the energy stored in the sugar will have a shape that recognizes the glucose and binds to it (like a lock and key) and chemically reactive amino acids that will react with the glucose and break it down to release the energy.