Icon representing a puzzle

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 hectorlothian 221. hectorlothian Lv 1 3 pts. 11,753
  2. Avatar for bloodyrobot 222. bloodyrobot Lv 1 1 pt. 11,753
  3. Avatar for Kulrajs2003 223. Kulrajs2003 Lv 1 1 pt. 11,753
  4. Avatar for Joan 224. Joan Lv 1 1 pt. 11,753
  5. Avatar for Saihah05 225. Saihah05 Lv 1 2 pts. 11,753
  6. Avatar for xinyih 226. xinyih Lv 1 2 pts. 11,753
  7. Avatar for crispy_crisps 227. crispy_crisps Lv 1 1 pt. 11,753
  8. Avatar for rainyday8078324 228. rainyday8078324 Lv 1 2 pts. 11,753
  9. Avatar for jaysonxu 229. jaysonxu Lv 1 1 pt. 11,753
  10. Avatar for bpham18 230. bpham18 Lv 1 3 pts. 11,753

Comments