Icon representing a puzzle

Beginner Puzzle: Coronavirus

Closed since about 1 year ago

Beginner

Summary


Created
January 09, 2025
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! This is a Beginner puzzle for new players that have joined Foldit in the last 6 months.

Top groups


  1. Avatar for L'Alliance Francophone 100 pts. 13,260
  2. Avatar for METU-BIN 2. METU-BIN 47 pts. 13,138
  3. Avatar for BIOF215 3. BIOF215 19 pts. 13,020
  4. Avatar for BIOTF345 4. BIOTF345 7 pts. 12,987
  5. Avatar for uneRx 5. uneRx 1 pt. 11,753
  6. Avatar for BCH3025 S25 6. BCH3025 S25 2 pts. 11,753
  7. Avatar for BPS_2025 7. BPS_2025 1 pt. 11,753
  8. Avatar for Street Smarts 8. Street Smarts 1 pt. 11,753

  1. Avatar for S.Safarzadeh 331. S.Safarzadeh Lv 1 1 pt. 11,753
  2. Avatar for lucereal 332. lucereal Lv 1 1 pt. 11,753
  3. Avatar for Riffro 333. Riffro Lv 1 1 pt. 11,753
  4. Avatar for Frostmind 334. Frostmind Lv 1 1 pt. 11,753
  5. Avatar for Awning0649 335. Awning0649 Lv 1 1 pt. 11,753
  6. Avatar for jimmyjimmyyay 336. jimmyjimmyyay Lv 1 1 pt. 11,753
  7. Avatar for Ngoc Tran 337. Ngoc Tran Lv 1 1 pt. 11,753
  8. Avatar for pdp 338. pdp Lv 1 1 pt. 11,753
  9. Avatar for OrangeJuice239 339. OrangeJuice239 Lv 1 1 pt. 11,753
  10. Avatar for timiagbes 340. timiagbes Lv 1 1 pt. 11,753

Comments