You don’t need to know anything about biochemistry or biology to be published in a scientific journal. You just have to Foldit. Foldit is a free online and interactive game developed by UW researchers.

Foldit uses human beings’ basic problem-solving skills. Gamers can click away at 3-D protein structures, twisting and turning them until they reach the correct structure.

While it may seem intimidating, anyone can be good at the game as long as they have an interest in solving puzzles. Those who help design a protein that leads to a scientific discovery will be credited in scientific publications.

Many are hooked by the idea of actually contributing to science and being acknowledged for this, as well as the online chatting and teamwork to solve more difficult structures.

“I am doing research into using games to do volunteer computing and am becoming increasingly interested in harnessing not only users’ computers, but their minds as well,” wrote Charles Cusack, aka “ferzle,” one of the program’s top folders and an assistant professor of computer science at Hope College in Holland, Mich., in an e-mail. “This was my initial draw to the game. Now, I play it because it is helping researchers who are trying to solve real-world problems, and for the competition.”

Proteins are part of every cell in every living thing, and with more than 100,000 different kinds of proteins with numerous roles, determining all the possible protein shapes and their uses would take every computer in the world years and years to solve.

The structure of a protein determines its specific function, such as breaking down food or regulating growth. Protein structure prediction is a hot topic in the field of biochemistry, inspiring Critical Assessment of Techniques for Protein Structure Prediction (CASP), a community-wide experiment, or competition, formed in 1994. Foldit and Rosetta@home — another protein program created by the UW ­— both contribute to the competition.

Computers have to try all possible configurations before stumbling on the solution, said Zoran Popović, associate professor of computer science and engineering. But people are naturally good at structural reasoning and visualizing how shapes fit into each other.

“There are computer programs that fold proteins, [like] Rosetta@home, [but] they’re still not perfect and require massive amounts of computation,” said Seth Cooper, a computer science graduate student. “So the hope is that people can bring their spatial reasoning and intuition to improve upon what computers can do, … combining what computers and humans can do.”

Stemming from Rosetta@home, a screensaver that folds proteins and sends the information to the UW’s Baker Laboratory, Foldit was born when biochemistry professor David Baker and computer science and engineering professor David Salesin were hiking on Mount Rainier. They talked about bringing the Baker Laboratory and computer science students and professors together. However, their main departure from Rosetta@home is that Foldit allows users to participate rather than just watch.

The game is set up so users can form social groups and share results. This allows them to team up and combine their strengths when tackling a particularly difficult protein.

The game was designed so users wouldn’t have to understand chemistry or how proteins actually work. Average people are better than a lot of biochemists, because it’s more about your spatial reasoning abilities than your knowledge of proteins, Baker said.

“Chatting is cool, as are the groups, although group play is a bit odd to me. Until recently, my goal has been to get the highest score possible on each puzzle,” Cusack said. “With groups, the goal is for the group to have a high score, which means sharing each others’ solutions so others in the group can improve them. … This creates an interesting dynamic that I haven’t quite gotten used to yet, but in terms of the project, it makes the most sense.”

The game is divided into levels and guided by a cartoon version of David Baker designed by Kathleen Tuite, a computer science and engineering graduate student. Users are given simple directions, although it still takes a couple of tries to get used to it.

“Although I clearly have to use my visualization skills to play the game, I do not see it as others might. I play more from a more algorithmic, mathematical perspective,” Cusack said. “Oversimplifying things a bit, my strategy ­— although it does incorporate some human skills — is in some sense a monkey at a keyboard strategy. I just pull things around, shake and wiggle. Put more technically, my strategy is based on perturbation — change the structure a little bit and let the algorithms fix it up, hopefully getting it to a better state.”

Researchers use feedback from the people playing it and will post updates, making users part of the process of the game’s design so it continues to evolve. The game is “alive,” Popović said.

“Many new players have come along and are doing very well, … and that is the whole point of the game — to attract more players so they can find a few people who are really good at [folding], — who can look at the protein and just see it,” Cusack said. “They want people to use their visualizations and problem-solving skills since computers aren’t very good at that.”

The next step is protein design and being able to change the atoms that form the protein so that it fits a particular function. Researchers hope to add this feature to the Web site this summer.

“By playing the game you can actually design a protein that can be used in a lab and used possibly to combat disease or catalyze particular reactions,” Cooper said. “So the grand goal is allowing people to play a video game and make a real contribution to science.”

Make your own scientific discovery at:

www.foldit.com