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The ordinary people making medical breakthroughs via crowdsourcing – solving problems that have doctors beat

Researchers can get too close to their subject and a layman’s intuition can achieve medical breakthroughs, as World Health Organisation crowdsourcing initiatives continue to show

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A man gets a free HIV test during a World Aids Day public awareness campaign, at a park in Fuzhou, Fujian province, China. Photo: AFP
Elaine Yauin Beijing

In 2011, the academic community was stunned when video game players accidentally figured out the structure of a retrovirus enzyme which had eluded scientists for more than a decade.

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The gamers struck research gold by playing Foldit, an online game that lets players collaborate and compete in predicting the structure of protein molecules.

After pouring millions of dollars into research grants to piece together the structure of the protein-cutting enzyme from an Aids-like virus came to no avail, the University of Washington’s department of biochemistry challenged the gamers to produce an accurate model of the enzyme. The Foldit players did it in just three weeks.

The models the gamers generated were good enough for researchers to refine and, within a few days, decipher the enzyme’s structure, which boosted the prospects for the design of retroviral drugs.

This example, in which laymen’s intuition succeeded where experts failed, is among 20 case studies described in a crowdsourcing guide launched at the 22nd World Health Organisation (WHO) International Aids Conference in Amsterdam last week.

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Foldit is an online game that lets players collaborate and compete in predicting the structure of protein molecules. Photo: Foldit
Foldit is an online game that lets players collaborate and compete in predicting the structure of protein molecules. Photo: Foldit
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