Foldit Puzzles

1048: 26 Residue Peptide Design

This puzzle is aimed at designing short peptides that fold into stable structures. We encourage the use of multiple disulfide bonds, but discourage GLY residues, which will score especially poorly here. See the puzzle comments for more information about filters. The Baker lab will run folding predictions on your best designs, and the the ones that perform well will be synthesized and further validated for structural stability. Remember, you can use the Upload for Scientists button for up to 5 designs that you want us to look at, even if they are not the best-scoring solutions!

1047: Revisiting Puzzle 58: Insulin Mutant

This is a throwback puzzle to the early days of Foldit. These are the two chains of a bio-engineered variant of human insulin, which together complete three disulfide bonds. We are revisiting old Foldit puzzles so we can see how useful the recent additions to the game have been.

1046: Player-Solution Strand Redesign

This is a puzzle where you can redesign part of a player-designed protein. This is a monomer designed by viosca for Puzzle 1024: 75 Residue Monomer Design: Zero Cysteines. Our analysis shows that most of this protein is likely to fold, but that the first strand and loop can adopt some alternative conformations. Help us redesign this region of the protein to lock down the position of the first strand! Players may make mutations only at certain positions that contact the first strand. Players may also insert two additional residues in this region, but beware that changing the shape of the protein too much will disqualify your design!

1045: VipB Cryo-EM Density: Ghost Density

This electron density puzzle is a little different from previous puzzles. We've provided you with a small EM density map, but only as a guide—fitting to the density will not affect your score! We want to see how well Foldit players can fold a protein with only the visual guidance of an electron density map. This is a small domain of the VipB protein, which is a component of the type VI secretion system in V. cholerae. After this puzzle closes, it may be reposted with normal density scoring.

1044: Revisiting Puzzle 57: Beta-Neurotoxin

This is a throwback puzzle to the early days of Foldit. This scorpion toxin is similar to the one from Puzzle 55, and binds to voltage-gated ion channels of insects. We are revisiting old Foldit puzzles so we can see how useful the recent additions to the game have been.

1043: 55 Residue Symmetric Hexamer Design

This puzzle again uses separate "Core Existence" filters for the monomer unit and the symmetric complex. Click the "Show" checkbox beneath the Core Existence filter to see which residues have been identified as Core (orange), Boundary (green), or Surface (blue). There are several other filters in effect; see the puzzle comments for details. The Baker Lab will run folding predictions on your solutions for this puzzle, and those that perform well will be synthesized in the lab. Remember, you can use the Upload for Scientists button for up to 5 designs that you want us to look at, even if they are not the best-scoring solutions!

1042: De-novo Freestyle 47: Round 2

This is Round 2 for Puzzle 1039. You will be able to load in your manual saves from 1039 and use them as a starting point here. This puzzle has been opened up to allow for sharing and the use of all scripts. NOTE: If you did not manually save a solution in puzzle 1039, you can go back to 1039, manually save it, and the solution should appear in your manual saves for this puzzle.

1041: Revisiting Puzzle 55: Scorpion Toxin

This is a throwback puzzle to the early days of Foldit. This scorpion toxin binds to voltage-gated ion channels in insects, resulting in full-body paralysis. We are revisiting old Foldit puzzles so we can see how useful the recent additions to the game have been.

1040: 65 Residue Monomer Design: Zero Cysteines

In this puzzle, we're asking players to design a protein with no cysteine residues! Remember that the SS Design filter now considers the environment around each residue, in addition to secondary structure. This means that some residue types will be restricted depending on whether the position is in the core or surface of the protein. There are several other filters in effect; see the puzzle comments for details. The Baker Lab will run folding predictions on your solutions for this puzzle, and those that perform well will be synthesized in the lab. Remember, you can use the Upload for Scientists button for up to 5 designs that you want us to look at, even if they are not the best-scoring solutions!

1039: De-novo Freestyle 47: Hand-folding Round

In this de-novo freestyle puzzle, only GUI scripts are allowed and sharing has been disabled. After this puzzle expires, the puzzle will be reposted with LUA scripts and sharing enabled. The secondary structure predictions are provided on the starting model, with more details posted in the puzzle comments.