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Beginner Puzzle: Coronavirus

Closed since 4 months ago

Beginner

Summary

Created
November 20, 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 CBME5920_2022 11. CBME5920_2022 1 pt. 11,753
  2. Avatar for Team China 12. Team China 1 pt. 11,753
  1. Avatar for Akira170215 191. Akira170215 Lv 1 2 pts. 11,753
  2. Avatar for Leif Leclaire 192. Leif Leclaire Lv 1 1 pt. 11,753
  3. Avatar for Lemir 193. Lemir Lv 1 3 pts. 11,753
  4. Avatar for nehal.patel 194. nehal.patel Lv 1 3 pts. 11,753
  5. Avatar for dparham 195. dparham Lv 1 1 pt. 11,753
  6. Avatar for Brbea8271 196. Brbea8271 Lv 1 1 pt. 11,753
  7. Avatar for somdebp 197. somdebp Lv 1 3 pts. 11,753
  8. Avatar for ushinushin 198. ushinushin Lv 1 1 pt. 11,753
  9. Avatar for Enno 199. Enno Lv 1 2 pts. 11,753
  10. Avatar for Juliettekahn 200. Juliettekahn Lv 1 2 pts. 11,753

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