Icon representing a puzzle

Beginner Puzzle: Coronavirus

Closed since about 2 months ago

Beginner

Summary

Created
December 25, 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 CBE_ProEn_2025
    1. CBE_ProEn_2025
    100 pts. 13,025
  2. Avatar for Street Smarts 2. Street Smarts 41 pts. 12,978
  3. Avatar for BIOF215 3. BIOF215 14 pts. 12,964
  4. Avatar for HEHE 4. HEHE 4 pts. 12,536
  5. Avatar for Rechenkraft.net 5. Rechenkraft.net 1 pt. 12,285
  6. Avatar for uneRx 6. uneRx 1 pt. 11,753
  7. Avatar for University of Washington 7. University of Washington 1 pt. 11,753
  1. Avatar for bublik_II 151. bublik_II Lv 1 6 pts. 11,754
  2. Avatar for THATGUY 152. THATGUY Lv 1 6 pts. 11,754
  3. Avatar for Robins.no.1 153. Robins.no.1 Lv 1 6 pts. 11,754
  4. Avatar for CyberCryo 154. CyberCryo Lv 1 6 pts. 11,754
  5. Avatar for sciencehelper314 155. sciencehelper314 Lv 1 6 pts. 11,754
  6. Avatar for ACK 156. ACK Lv 1 6 pts. 11,753
  7. Avatar for Impulse ace 157. Impulse ace Lv 1 6 pts. 11,753
  8. Avatar for adoelling 158. adoelling Lv 1 5 pts. 11,753
  9. Avatar for Ax0rd 159. Ax0rd Lv 1 5 pts. 11,753
  10. Avatar for noushnoush67 160. noushnoush67 Lv 1 5 pts. 11,753

Comments