University Competition Folders vs. Universal Foldit Power

[zoran]

Looking at how the University competition is unfolding (no pun intended), it is clear that there has been some serious competition going between many universities. It became obvious quickly that most of the teams entered are actually doing protein folding for their research. So we got a lot more expert graduate students and post docs, than undergraduates. And they are doing very well.

It would be very interesting for us to discover whether free foldit player expertise can outperform heavily incentivized experts at the identical task. As soon as the University Foldit competition is complete, we will release the same puzzle to all foldit players. Should be fun.

[John McLeod]

"Washington U. students play computer game that may help treat diseases", by MICHELE MUNZ, Wednesday, November 17, 2010 12:45 pm
http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/health-med-fit/fitness/article_0e437e68-b735-5bd6-be6e-fe5d2c9f8a77.html

"The team of Washington University students was in the top five out of 25 others — including teams from Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Princeton and Stanford. The field includes teams from large protein-folding labs at MIT and the University of Wisconsin. //
"We're all pretty psyched to be doing as well as we are," said Sullivan, the team leader. The two-week competition will end at midnight tonight."