Beginner Puzzle: Coronavirus

Closed since about 1 year ago

Summary

• Created: January 09, 2025
• Expires: February 13, 2025 at 18:00 UTC
• 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. L'Alliance Francophone 100 pts. 13,260
• 2. METU-BIN 47 pts. 13,138
• 3. BIOF215 19 pts. 13,020
• 4. BIOTF345 7 pts. 12,987
• 5. uneRx 1 pt. 11,753
• 6. BCH3025 S25 2 pts. 11,753
• 7. BPS_2025 1 pt. 11,753
• 8. Street Smarts 1 pt. 11,753

Top soloists

• 51. ksnmk 60 pts. 12,859
• 52. weezergaming 60 pts. 12,855
• 53. Shiv Mangal Shukla 59 pts. 12,850
• 54. zychem 58 pts. 12,832
• 55. foldingwarrior 58 pts. 12,831
• 56. Rutugandha 57 pts. 12,815
• 57. Benote 56 pts. 12,800
• 58. He cheng kuo 56 pts. 12,795
• 59. Agreen 55 pts. 12,790
• 60. gabsameisen 55 pts. 12,780