Foldit is asking users to design proteins to fight the coronavirus.
Foldit is asking users to design proteins to fight the coronavirus.
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Coronavirus inspires University of Washington to create protein-folding puzzle game

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 2 min

To address the coronavirus, the University of Washington has launched a puzzle game that challenges you to build a protein that could stop COVID-19 (the virus’s official name) from attacking human cells.

The game is available on Foldit, a website that the Center for Game Science created. Foldit uses crowdsourcing from more than 200,000 registered players to conduct protein research. It’s an example of citizen science in action, as well as another justification for playing a game.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.