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Foldit Player May Have Created a Useful Protein

Posted by kdawson on from the know-when-to-hold-'em dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The organizers of the game Foldit, where you fold proteins for scientific research, announced that a user has found a protein that may be able to bind influenza viruses. Researchers plan to test the protein in a lab over the next few weeks to see if it might be medically useful."

9 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. Re:And who gets the patent for it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hint: Not the player.

  2. Re:And who gets the patent for it? by glwtta · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And who gets the patent(s), money etc. for this particular protein?

    I guess it's whoever spends the hundreds of millions of dollars to follow up on the infinitesimal chance that this will lead to something useful?

    --
    sic transit gloria mundi
  3. *sigh* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    If it is a useful protein, the patent will go to whoever owns the lab. The player and discoverer will be quietly shooed away. You'll see a slashdot article titled "foldit player sues lab" in 8 months. Then you'll never hear about it again.

    1. Re:*sigh* by Garble+Snarky · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So... you're saying the work of studying proteins for years, coming up with the game idea, creating and distributing the software, is all nothing, in comparison to the guy who downloaded a program and clicked some buttons? I think the notion of "discovery" is pretty fuzzy in a lot of cases, but you're crazy if you think the player deserves MORE credit than the software authors here.

    2. Re:*sigh* by sFurbo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Or the people who synthesize the protein, test that it folds the right way, test it in vitro, test it in animals, perform phase 0, 1, 2 and 3 human trials. You know, the actually finding out if it can be used as a drug. Coming up with a drug candidate is the easy and cheap part of making a new drug.

  4. Re:confusion about problems and symptoms by complacence · · Score: 2, Insightful

    so it's a completely different pool of money[,] asstard.

    You're confused about that making any difference at all in a cost-benefit to society way.

    To paraphrase you: "You're so stupid. The money doesn't get wasted in this place but in the other one. This is totally ok, you know, because this is a symptom of the way the system is set up, so it must be ok. That said, I'm now going to drag something completely unrelated into the discussion because I'm less interested in finding out what's right than in attacking people who don't share my unquestionable presuppositions."

    The difference here probably is that your parent implied it's bad to spend money, i.e. human time and labor investment, on something that doesn't create added value, while you think it's just "frictional" costs in a system that can't be any other way.

  5. Re:And who gets the patent for it? by jmv · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Try comparing R&D expenses to their marketing expenses. R&D doesn't look that expensive anymore.

    --
    Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
  6. Re:Pauling and Vitamin C by Darth+Hamsy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Go look at the literature. Pauling showed that the mechanism virii use

    Viruses, viruses, viruses. Virii is not the plural of virus.

  7. Re:And who gets the patent for it? by tthomas48 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Huh, oddly enough I seem to remember that when drug companies were banned from advertising on TV their drugs still sold. So it's not really a necessary evil. Drug companies used to be hugely profitable and didn't have as large marketing budgets.