To disable M-PMV’s protease, we need to know exactly what it looks like. Like real scissors, the proteases come in two halves that need to lock together in order to work. If we knew where the halves joined together, we could create drugs that prevent them from uniting. But until now, scientists have only been able to discern the structure of the two halves together. They have spent more than ten years trying to solve structure of a single isolated half, without any success.
The Foldit players had no such problems. They came up with several answers, one of which was almost close to perfect. In a few days, Khatib had refined their solution to deduce the protein’s final structure, and he has already spotted features that could make attractive targets for new drugs.
Over ten years trying to solve part of a problem. Turn it into a game, give it to the Internet, use mathematical magic on the large number of varied solutions to come up with the answer.
That answer - to the whole problem, not just part of it - came after a few days.
(A full discussion and explanation of this will appear on Geekosaur in the next few days)
