Foldit Puzzles

1901: Coronavirus Anti-inflammatory Design: Round 14

Design an anti-inflammatory protein for COVID-19! This puzzle includes optional Objectives for the binder metrics. The DDG, SASA, and SC Objectives will not award any bonuses and should not affect recipes, but you can run these Objectives to check the binder metrics of your design. We've also adjusted the BUNS objective to ignore many of the "unsolvable" BUNS in the frozen target. However, there are still a few BUNS that you may not be able to satisfy. This puzzle prohibits SER and THR in helices, which may make it harder to satisfy BUNS, but should help the helices to fold correctly. Remember, if your designed protein creates Buried Unsats, then it will be less likely to fold and bind to the target. See the blog for more details about buried unsats, and for helpful tips to make a successful protein binder! Players will be unable to load solutions from previous puzzles.

1900: Symmetric Trimer Design: H-bond Networks

Design a symmetric protein trimer, with 3 identical chains that assemble together! This puzzle includes a Secondary Structure Objective, so no more than 50% of your design can form helices. The H-bond Network Objective encourages players to build buried, satisfied H-bond networks at the interface between symmetric chains. H-bond networks are a great way to introduce polar residues at the interface, but it's important that all of the bondable atoms make hydrogen bonds! We've also adjusted the H-bond Network Objective so that poor-scoring H-bonds may not contribute to networks; poor-scoring H-bonds will be displayed in red. This puzzle uses the Buried Unsats Objective, with a large penalty for buried polar atoms that can't make H-bonds. In this puzzle, there are no limits on the Complex Core, but we've included the Complex Core objective so players can see the core residues that can be incorporated into H-bond Networks.

1899: Revisiting Puzzle 139: Rosetta Decoy 3

This is a throwback puzzle to the early days of Foldit. Ubiquitin is a well-known protein that helps to regulate the natural turnover of proteins in the cell, and this starting structure is a model of the protein produced by Rosetta. We are revisiting old Foldit puzzles so we can see how useful the recent additions to the game have been and to provide newer players with puzzles that are still scientifically relevant.

1898: Coronavirus Binder Design: Round 19

Design a binder against coronavirus! This puzzle includes optional Objectives for the binder metrics. The DDG, SASA, and SC Objectives will not award any bonuses and should not affect recipes, but you can run these Objectives to check the binder metrics of your design. We've also adjusted the BUNS objective to ignore many of the "unsolvable" BUNS in the frozen target. Remember, if your designed protein creates Buried Unsats, then it will be less likely to fold and bind to the coronavirus target. (Note that this target protein includes 3 buried unsats that players may be unable to fix.) See the blog for more details about buried unsats, and for helpful tips to make a successful protein binder! Players may not load solutions from previous puzzles.

1897: Symmetric Trimer Design: H-bond Networks

Design a symmetric protein trimer, with 3 identical chains that assemble together! This puzzle includes a Secondary Structure Objective, so no more than 50% of your design can form helices. The H-bond Network Objective encourages players to build buried, satisfied H-bond networks at the interface between symmetric chains. H-bond networks are a great way to introduce polar residues at the interface, but it's important that all of the bondable atoms make hydrogen bonds! We've also adjusted the H-bond Network Objective so that poor-scoring H-bonds may not contribute to networks; poor-scoring H-bonds will be displayed in red. This puzzle uses the Buried Unsats Objective, with a large penalty for buried polar atoms that can't make H-bonds. In this puzzle, there are no limits on the Complex Core, but we've included the Complex Core objective so players can see the core residues that can be incorporated into H-bond Networks.

1896: Revisiting Puzzle 138: Rosetta Decoy 2

This is a throwback puzzle to the early days of Foldit. Ubiquitin is a well-known protein that helps to regulate the natural turnover of proteins in the cell, and this starting structure is a model of the protein produced by Rosetta. We are revisiting old Foldit puzzles so we can see how useful the recent additions to the game have been and to provide newer players with problems that are still scientifically relevant.

1895: Coronavirus Anti-inflammatory Design: Round 13

Design an anti-inflammatory protein for COVID-19! This puzzle includes optional Objectives for the binder metrics. The DDG, SASA, and SC Objectives will not award any bonuses and should not affect recipes, but you can run these Objectives to check the binder metrics of your design. We've also adjusted the BUNS objective to ignore many of the "unsolvable" BUNS in the frozen target. However, there are still a few BUNS that you may not be able to satisfy. This puzzle prohibits SER and THR in helices, which may make it harder to satisfy BUNS, but should help the helices to fold correctly. Remember, if your designed protein creates Buried Unsats, then it will be less likely to fold and bind to the target. See the blog for more details about buried unsats, and for helpful tips to make a successful protein binder! Players will be unable to load solutions from previous puzzles.

LCB1 Coronavirus Spike Binder

Note: This puzzle had some incorrect settings for Core Exists, Ideal Loops, and SS Design Objectives. It has been replaced with an updated LCB1 puzzle.

Design of the Month: September 2020

This sandbox puzzle features a symmetric trimer design by grogar7, from Puzzle 1879. Usually, a buried edge strand is problem, because backbone polar atoms can't make H-bonds with water. But, in this design, cleverly-placed sidechains satisfy many of the polar atoms on the edge strand buried at the interface. For more, check out Foldit Lab Report #12 on YouTube! This sandbox puzzle is non-competitive and will not award any points.

LCB1 Coronavirus Spike Binder (corrected)

Note: This replaces the original LCB1 puzzle, which had some incorrect settings for Core Exists, Ideal Loops, and SS Design Objectives.