<p>[Online</a> gamers crack AIDS enzyme puzzle - Yahoo! News](<a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/online-gamers-crack-aids-enzyme-puzzle-175427367.html]Online”>http://news.yahoo.com/online-gamers-crack-aids-enzyme-puzzle-175427367.html)</p>
<p>"Online gamers have achieved a feat beyond the realm of Second Life or Dungeons and Dragons: they have deciphered the structure of an enzyme of an AIDS-like virus that had thwarted scientists for a decade.</p>
<p>The exploit is published on Sunday in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, where – exceptionally in scientific publishing – both gamers and researchers are honoured as co-authors.</p>
<p>Their target was a monomeric protease enzyme, a cutting agent in the complex molecular tailoring of retroviruses, a family that includes HIV.</p>
<p>Figuring out the structure of proteins is vital for understanding the causes of many diseases and developing drugs to block them.</p>
<p>But a microscope gives only a flat image of what to the outsider looks like a plate of one-dimensional scrunched-up spaghetti. Pharmacologists, though, need a 3-D picture that “unfolds” the molecule and rotates it in order to reveal potential targets for drugs."</p>