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Beginner Puzzle (<150): Coronavirus

Closed since about 6 years ago

Beginner Beginner Beginner Beginner

Summary

Created
March 03, 2020
Expires
Max points
100
Description

Design a protein binder against coronavirus! The starting structure shows how the coronavirus spike protein binds to a human receptor protein. The coronavirus protein (in gray) is mostly frozen, except for the orange and blue sidechains at the binding site. The binding site of coronavirus sticks to the human protein (in color), and this allows the coronavirus to infect human cells. We want to design a new protein that can bind to coronavirus more tightly than the human protein! A tight binder could block the normal coronavirus-human interaction, and might be used as an antiviral drug against coronavirus! Refold and mutate the starting structure to increase your score and improve binding against coronavirus!



START HERE:

If you are new to Foldit, here are detailed instructions to get you started:

http://fold.it/portal/node/988864

_____________________________


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- try all puzzles not only "Beginners" ones,

- fold first the ones you like the most,

- try it by yourself to understand what works and what doesn't,

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Comments

bkoep Staff Lv 1

The solutions from this Beginner puzzle are incompatible with other non-Beginner puzzles,. Players may not load solutions from this puzzle into other coronavirus puzzles.