[ExI] EteRNA

[Adrian Tymes]

http://eterna.cmu.edu

A RNA design simulation.  The main initial part of the game is, you have
a certain shape of RNA (and thus, protein) that you want to make.  You
know where the base pairs are supposed to go, but which amino acids go
where?  The tutorials and simple challenges (at least, the ones I've seen
so far) are at most a few hundreds of base pairs, usually less than one
hundred, so the computer knows what each base pair combination folds
into.

Once you get past 10,000 points, a feature opens up where you can guess
the pair arrangement for a more complex RNA.  This gets synthesized in
real life; the closest guesser wins a prize.

So far, so good?  Get this: there have already been strategy guides written
for it (and it was just launched earlier this week).  Imagine what happens
when biochemistry students - who will professionally, whether in academia
or industry post-graduation, be making proteins - get ahold of those as part
of their course cirricula (to say nothing of being able to refer to them while
on the job).  Then imagine what happens once the DIY biotech types get
wind of this as a training tool.

Granted, it won't tell you what the proteins do.  But for example, HIV is
one of the challenges.  What if they later extend it so you can draw your
own RNA shape - say, a compliment to HIV, to act as a simple antibody -
and pick that up as your own challenge?

Take it with a grain of salt, of course.  I am far from being the world's
foremost expert in biochemistry.  But the simulation is there, free for
anyone to use right now.