Since November 2010, scientists created a web-based video game where gamers can help scientists in their study of several genetic diseases. This game is named Phylo and allows players to rearrange multiple colored blocks which represent human DNA. Scientists are currently studying the information gathered from over 17,000 registered users who have created over 350,000 solutions to each sequence.
Phylo was created by Dr. Jérôme Waldispuhl and his students at the McGill School of Computer Science.
"Waldispuhl and his students came up with the idea of using a video game to solve the problem of DNA multiple sequence alignment because it is a task that is difficult for computers to do well. "There are some calculations that the human brain does more efficiently than any computer can. Recognizing and sorting visual patterns fall in that category," explained Waldispuhl. "Computers are best at handling large amounts of messy data, but where we require high accuracy, we need humans. In this case, the genomes we're analyzing have already been pre-aligned by computers, but there are parts of it that are misaligned. Our goal is to identify these parts and transform the task of aligning them into a puzzle people will want to sort out."
And if you don't believe it's helping, then read what Waldispuhl stated below:
"Phylo has contributed to improving our understanding of the regulation of 521 genes involved in a variety of diseases. It also confirms that difficult computational problems can be embedded in a casual game that can easily be played by people without any scientific training. What we're doing here is different from classical citizen science approaches. We aren't substituting humans for computers or asking them to compete with the machines. They are working together. It's a synergy of humans and machines that helps to solve one of the most fundamental biological problems."
Via: Game Politics, Medical Xpress
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