Over the past few years I’ve covered a wide range of games that allow players to contribute towards scientific research. For instance Phylo was produced by McGill in a bid to increase the understanding of genetic research. Eyewire is a similar effort, this time produced by MIT, that aims to further understanding of neuroscience.
EteRNA is a game that explores the folding patterns of RNA, whilst NOVA is tackling a similar issue, but with the hope that it will get youngsters involved.
Charities have also got involved. Reverse the Odds is a game created by Cancer Research UK to help with the fight against the disease.
Or you have Nanocrafter, which has been created by researchers at the University of Washington to help further understanding of synthetic biology.
Molecular gaming
The latest project is a game designed to help tackle the issue of how molecules fit together. BioBlox2D is a new game from Imperial College London and Goldsmiths, University of London. The aim is for players to use the Tetris-style game to examine how proteins fit together with smaller molecules.
This docking process is key to understanding how cells work, which in turn is crucial to developing new drugs for conditions such as Alzheimer’s. The 3D forms of these molecules makes understanding how they fit together very difficult however. The developers hope that the game will be popular among children looking to learn about chemistry and biology.
“In BioBlox2D we open the world of protein docking to the mass market casual games player, where they have fun playing our puzzle game but at the same time learn about the science,” the team say.
“We were inspired by a scientific problem to develop a fun-to-play game where players can experience the challenges of matching both shapes and electrical charges, which is central to how life works,” they continue.
The researchers say the block-slotting gameplay is given an original twist as players also have to match positively charged blocks with negatively charged ones – a reference to the binding mechanisms of real proteins. Successfully clearing blocks unlocks information and bonuses such as slowing time and automatically completing a level.
The team are also releasing a 3D version at the same time as the 2D version, BioBlox3D, which they plan to make it possible to crowdsource the protein docking problem through citizen science challenges.
The intention with BioBlox3D is to simulate the protein docking problem with far greater realism in 3D and potentially solve real-world problems. At the moment, the pre-set models in the game come from an existing protein database, but players will soon have the ability to upload their own protein data and experiment in 3D.
Check out the video below to see the game in action.
